The electoral failures pale in comparison with the media failures, primarily because of the enormous reach of the media (see Brazil). But there are, inarguably, major electoral failures and fraud which favor Clinton, and are often engineered or reviewed by her supporters.
The improbable Iowa coin flips and Bill Clinton's potential voter violation felony may have prevented Sanders' fifth Super Tuesday win and helped her media narrative at crucial times. In Arizona, where Sanders won the election day vote, many polling station closures had voters waiting many hours, most provisional ballots were discarded, and registrations were flipped to prevent voting. Weeks later, there was more chaos in New York where 125,000 Brooklynites--just miles from Clinton's office in Sanders' hometown--were dropped from the voting rolls in one of the few areas Clinton won. There were more flipped registrations and exit polls that differed from polling results in an extremely unlikely manner which has illogically prompted the news media to cancel exit polls, a tool in judging the integrity of overseas elections. The reported votes Sanders received decreased, a seemingly impossible phenomenon, and thousands of votes are yet to be counted in many states. even the electoral structure seems unfair--the lockout of independents, the requirement to change parties sometimes very early, and the inclusion of parties like the American Independent Party in California.
AND NOW THE MEDIA AND HILLARY SUPPORTERS ARGUE SUPERDELEGATES SHOULD NOT DO THEIR JOB (SUPERDELEGATES)
Superdelegates are an institution that was created for a particular purpose. Like it or love it, eliminate it now or later. But for now, it's their job to choose the more electable candidate. That's what we were told.
"For a full year -- from early 2015 to early 2016 -- Sanders supporters were told that superdelegates pick whoever they believe is the strongest general-election candidate," Seth Abramson writes in "Sanders' Supporters Have Been Lied to And Here's How ." He elaborated on it in "How to Explain the Sanders Campaign to an Idiot, Paul Krugman or a Clintonite in 8 Sentences " and most recently pointed out how Clinton herself had subscribed to such a theory in "Clinton in 2008 Opposed Early Call of Primary, Told Media 'Nomination Will Be Up to the Superdelegates'."
But now Clinton significantly lags Sanders in polling against Trump, potentially awaits indictment, and is viewed as "honest and trustworthy" by about 30 percent of American voters so she claims superdelegates should support the candidate with more popular votes. This is by definition the opposite reason of why they were created; and while the two -- the popular leader and the better election candidate -- can coincide, they do not this year.
Why this detailed recounting of the role and failures of our institutions? Why not just accept the prevailing narrative she'll be the winner and that his complaining is "sour grapes?"
THE FIGHT AHEAD AGAINST CORPORATE POWER, ALLIED WITH INSTITUTIONS
It's important democratic institutions function in a democracy. They allow remarkable candidacies and promote movements to spearhead change.
Sanders has elevated truths about the daunting tasks we now face to dramatically reduce inequality and poverty, and to promote sustainability: for humans to live with dignity. He has provided great messaging for what Abramson calls a "philosophical revolution" in which we can reconstruct our economic and cultural markets to better reflect our values. A look at, and expansion of the vocabulary he employs illustrates the significance of his candidacy.
"Establishment" is a frequent Sandersism mocked by Clinton and her supporters. Logically so: these funders, allies, senior employees, and vacation buddies comprise her world. But it's useful to also remember that it serves as shorthand for our society's power structure. Today it represents those who have conceived of and created a world of pervasive inequality, deprivation, and planetary destruction with its full measure of suffering.
"Inequality" is something Clinton visited Sen. Elizabeth Warren to discuss months ago (coincidentally right before Warren announced she wouldn't run for president). It too is a term equally out of her reach. The top 1/10thof 1 percent has almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent in America, as Sanders frequently says. The top 1 percent worldwide almost as much as the bottom 99 percent.
Inequality in America is "shorthand " for the coronation of Wall Street and the slow blighting of wherever it is you live " You catch a glimpse of it when you hear about the bankruptcy your neighbor had to declare when his child got sick " [it] is a euphemism for the Appalachification of our world," Sanders supporter author Tom Frank explains in "Listen, Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?"
"[I]t is the eternal conflict of management and labor, owner and worker, rich and poor--only with one side pinned to the ground and the other leisurely pounding away at its adversary's face."
"Sharing economy" doesn't refer to a new cooperative structure sweeping America. Rather it is a model in which workers have to own their own work assets, and provide insurance and savings for illness and retirement in "one of the most lopsided, antiworker employment schemes to come down the pike in years," according to Frank. It is perhaps a precursor to atomized labor and crowdworking that could turn many people into not day- but minute-laborers. Today's championed "innovations" rarely provide potable water, healthy and safe food, or planetary sustainability. It's often a method to get something a little quicker and cheaper on the internet by ignoring land and worker regulations that just societies are built on.
"Climate change" involves impending droughts and famine across Central America and Africa , the desperate mass migration of refugees, and looming planetary catastrophe. It is a harsh reality that remains as the call to use our arms to embrace humanity through an ethos of love, cooperation, and peace goes unanswered.
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