After Carter's Presidency, Democrats changed the rules for their nominating process in the hope that they might prevent a future Carter, and I have, on occasion, speculated that Republicans might respond to Trump by changing their nominating rules in the aftermath of whatever is left in his wreckage to prevent a similar recurrence. The Presidency is no place for national political outsiders. Plenty of Republican officials are as aware of this now as the Democrats who changed their nominating rules after Carter.
That's not what's happening. The wrong party just changed its rules. Why? Those damned Sanders people. The Republican Party is still in the death-grip of Donald Trump, grabbed like so many... um... things he can grab and get away with. But, the Democrats just changed their rules.
After the fun of Carter's Presidency, the Democrats put together the Hunt Commission, which advised the creation of "superdelegates." Elected officials and other party muckety-mucks would get to vote however they wanted at the national convention, regardless of how their states voted. The idea was that if the unwashed masses did something stupid, like pick a guy who would obviously be a bad president, the superdelegates could override that decision at the convention.
Um... do you see a problem here? This was exactly what caused the 1968 riots, which led to the McGovern-Fraser reforms, which led to Carter. Basically, the Democrats couldn't make up their minds about whether or not to let the unwashed masses pick their nominee. Periodic rule changes since the Hunt Commission have affected the proportion of delegates who would be superdelegates, but the basic question remained. Should the unwashed masses get their pick? Of course, given delegate allocation to states, you have the same basic issue as with the electoral college. In principle, a "popular vote" winner could lose, but you shouldn't look at things like a "popular vote" anyway, as I have ranted before. Still, this is one of those "make up your minds, people" kind of situations.
Have the superdelegates ever flipped the outcome? No. HRC tried everything to convince them to flip the 2008 nomination to her in 2008, telling them that Obama could never win a general election, particularly against such a great man as the now-deceased John McCain (see yesterday's post)! Why? Well, you see, she won certain states, and certain sub-populations in the primaries, and that meant only she could win the general, and blah, blah, blah. Also, she pulled some really sleazy shit with Florida and Michigan, but that's a whole different rant. Hillary Clinton really is a sleaze. Standards have changed since Trump reset the scale on humanoid sleaze, but once upon a time, Clinton did look comparatively sleazy. Now, she's fuckin' Eliot Ness by contrast, but in 2008, nope.
Her argument might sound familiar, though, because Sanders pulled the same act on her that she pulled on Obama. What goes around comes around. Make bullshit disingenuous arguments on your opponent, and someone will do the same to you eventually.
Anyway, Sanders wanted the superdelegates to flip the 2016 nomination to him. And the Sanders idiots actually walked into the convention thinking it would happen. They were so deluded that even after she crushed that little twerp like the bug he is, they thought the superdelegates were going to give the nomination to him. 'Cuz... something. Whatever. That... wasn't going to happen anymore than any other of Sanders's pipe dreams.
However, apparently Sanders's little followers have been agitating for the elimination of the very people he asked to flip the nomination in his favor. Huh? Yeah, try to follow this. Without the drugs that Sanders takes on a daily basis. Sanders loses the primaries and caucuses. He needs the superdelegates to get the nomination, and asks them to flip the contest to him in 2016. They tell him to get lost. He blames his loss on the unfairness of the superdelegates, which he wants eliminated. Leaving only the primaries and caucuses. Which he lost. Take away the superdelegates, and...
He still loses. He never had a chance. Why? Two main reasons. Clinton walked into that contest with a big, existing base of support, because she was Hillary Clinton. Her second advantage was on race. Sanders is basically a Marxist. He isn't agitating for a full-on revolution, up-against-the-wall, government seizing the means of production kind of deal. It's hard to hold the rifle when you won't put down your bong, so at least there's a benefit to that kind of Marxist. Stoners are, at least, harmless in that sense. However, he-who-walks-on-bongwater sees the world through a Marxist lens, in which race is a form of false consciousness, distracting from class. So, he never really talked about race.
Biologically, race is, well... let's just say that Charles Murray can go fuck himself. And as for everyone else, with respect to people like Murray, follow the John Waters rule. If you see a Murray book on someone's shelf, you get my point. That doesn't make race socially irrelevant. To quote Patterson Hood, "If you say it wasn't racial when they shot him in his tracks; Well, I guess that means that you ain't black." (from "What It Means," American Band). Clinton had a big advantage in the African-American community because while the Clintons pulled some sleazy shit on race in the 1980s and early 1990s, they came around. Sanders just ducked race entirely. Sanders never had a chance.
Is there any way to make the case that superdelegates helped Clinton? Sort of. One could argue that superdelegates created the impression of Clinton's inevitability because their early endorsements put Sanders at a disadvantage. However, if you try to make that argument, the problem is that the media gave Sanders SOOOOOO much attention even when he had no chance, both early in the race, and long after it was clear that he was toast that if you look at the balance of those forces, you have to call bullshit. The media really tried to cancel out Clinton's superdelegate advantage. Why? They wanted a story, and they hated Clinton. So, they built up Sanders, even though it was clear that he never had any chance at all.
Hence this silliness. Sanders asked the superdelegates to flip the race to him, they refused, and his people want the superdelegates weakened because they wouldn't, leaving the primaries and caucuses, where he lost. Logic has never been the strong-suit of he-who-walks-on-bong-water.
Does this mean superdelegates are good or bad? Superdelegates are silly. They are the result of indecisiveness about whether or not the unwashed masses should get to pick a nominee. After Trump, I think we should all take a step back and ask how much power the masses should have in the nominating process, and ask whether or not more power should be given to the muckety-mucks, who wouldn't let an idiot child like Trump get nominated, but that means the wrong party is changing its rules. Sanders v. Clinton? The Democrats made the right call. Clinton is sleazy, but not stupid or disconnected from reality to the degree that Sanders is. Twits like Sanders have no business anywhere near the White House. Republicans, on the other hand, made the worst nomination in American history. And so far, they aren't changing anything.
Anyway, though, here is what the Democrats have done. They took away the superdelegates' ability to vote on the first ballot. If someone wins an outright majority of delegates from the primaries and caucuses, the superdelegates won't be able to flip the outcome, the way Sanders tried to get them to do, back in 2016. So, Sanders's people are now happy that the superdelegates can't do what they tried to get the superdelegates to do two years ago. Remember, Sanders's supporters are not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree. Is this a bad reform? Well, since the superdelegates never have flipped a result, and probably never would, it is probably irrelevant. It will save us the stupidity of people trying what the Sanders people tried in 2016, and what the Clinton people tried in 2008. Take away the illusion of a nonexistent option that created riots in 1968, because the superdelegates would have been too cowardly to use it. The superdelegates come back if there is no majority on the first ballot, and we see a "brokered convention." We haven't seen one in decades. Could it happen? Possible, and I have no idea how it would be taken if the superdelegates swayed things in a brokered convention, but this is an interesting development.
Key takeaway points:
1) Sanders supporters are, as ever, clueless. Asking the superdelegates to flip the election for Sanders, failing to convince them, and then trying to disempower those superdelegates is a special kind of illogic.
2) The superdelegates have always been a silly form of indecisiveness. Should the rabble have their choice or not? Make up your damned minds.
3) This is not the party that needs to be changing the rules. The GOP screwed up. They are the ones who need to change their rules. Get on this, people. Then again, if democracy is reduced to rubble and cinder before the next election, I think that deck chair should be over there. It'll give me a great view of that iceberg.
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