Boardman writes: "By now, anyone paying the least attention knows that the
dishonest Democratic establishment and dishonest mainstream media have
created a false narrative of bad behavior by Bernie Sanders supporters at
the Nevada State Democratic State Convention on May 14."
Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, February
19, 2016. (photo: Reuters/David Becker)
Clinton to California: "Drop Dead"
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
22 May 16
By now, anyone paying the least attention knows that the dishonest
Democratic establishment and dishonest mainstream media have created a false
narrative of bad behavior by Bernie Sanders supporters at the Nevada State
Democratic State Convention on May 14. The evidence-free claims about
"thrown chairs" (none) and "death threats" (tasteless insults) have been
widely rebutted, but they have served their purpose all the same: taking
attention away from the arrogant, autocratic management of the Nevada
convention by establishment Democrats working on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
It's a measure of Democratic Party panic that party leaders feel the need to
run a despotic convention, autocratically ramming their preferred results
through when there were only two national delegates at stake. Their fear of
Bernie Sanders must run deep for them to follow this authoritarian
performance with a smear campaign based on lies about the Sanders campaign.
Establishment Democrats should be afraid, since almost half the voters
allowed to vote in Democratic primaries reject establishment Democratic
"values." But their shamelessness, pusillanimity, and obtuse arrogance march
on toward a possibly disastrous November that is wholly self-engineered.
Here's what arrogant denial of reality sounded like on CNN May 19, inside
the establishment Democrat echo-chamber: reporter Chris Cuomo tries a
reality based question and Hillary Clinton meets it with almost absolute
denial:
Cuomo (CNN): So you get into the general election, if you're the nominee for
your party, and -
Clinton: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in
effect. There is no way that I won't be.
Cuomo: There's a Senator from Vermont who has a different take on that -
Clinton: Well -
Cuomo: He says he's going to fight to the end -
Clinton: Yeah, it's strange.
Sanders still could pull a rabbit out of the hat for a "miracle ending"
First, let's stipulate that the possibility of Bernie Sanders becoming the
Democratic nominee for President is small. But it's also real. Should he be
able to get 85% of the California vote, he'd get ALL the California
delegates. No wonder establishment Democrats want to pretend the game is
already over. It's close to over, to be sure. By analogy, it's the fourth
quarter and the Patriots are down by two touchdowns, but Tom Brady and his
team have the ball at midfield with all their timeouts remaining. Let's wait
and see what the score really is when the game is really over. (In 2008,
Clinton played out the game, losing 15 of the last 23 contests; this year,
Sanders is winning down the stretch.)
Cuomo's first question is precisely right, despite the "conventional
wisdom," which is a somewhat desperate attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's what Clinton counters with, the self-fulfilling prophecy gambit, and
yet even she can't escape that shred of uncertainty when she says, "in
effect." "In effect" is not a done deal, and wishing won't make it so.
On CNN, Clinton deflects whatever Cuomo was originally intending to ask. He
takes the Sanders bait and, in mealy-mouthed fashion, says Sanders is going
to fight to the end. Clinton cuts him off and calls that "strange." The
candidate's talking point has silenced the reporter, but it hasn't changed
reality: Clinton's nomination, however likely it may seem, also hangs by a
thread. That's a much more interesting story than most of the mainstream
garble. Why would Clinton think her arrogance will help her? Why do
Democrats think running a Potemkin convention in Nevada is necessary to
secure two delegates? Why are Democrats resorting to blatant smears of the
Sanders campaign if the nomination is already secure? If establishment
Democrats actually believe that party unity is important, why have they
ramped up their divisiveness?
On CNN, his reality-based question, Cuomo switches to the false narrative of
Nevada that goes unexamined: "his supporters have become more aggressive..
We saw what happened in Nevada.. Did you feel that Sanders responded in the
right way?" That is profoundly dishonest and unprofessional: Cuomo assumes a
false reality, while ignoring the reality of the rigged convention, and then
tosses Clinton a softball question. She affirms the false narrative ("what
we saw there was disturbing") and slides past the question ("I have every
confidence we're going to be unified") and speaks falsely about 2008 ("I won
9 out of the last 12 contests"). Clinton goes on and on with a false analogy
about 2008, talking about how she and Obama worked for unity AFTER all the
primaries were over. Cuomo just smiles and nods, as if he believes Clinton's
nonsense is relevant, when it's obviously not.
Revolution is hard, non-violent revolution is much harder
Bernie Sanders is fighting for a political revolution. He is doing it with
nonviolence, working within the two-party system. The Democratic Party is
not a revolutionary party, and hasn't even been close since the Johnson
years in the sixties. Establishment Democrats like the Clintons are
fundamentally counter-revolutionary, which is a problem for a party with ten
million voters favoring the political revolution candidate. The Republican
party is so intellectually corrupt that it fell apart facing the Trump
challenge, and is now falling in line with it. Democrats still have enough
party discipline (or top-down undemocratic hierarchy) that they can muster
the ugly pushback that featured a convention with no meaningful
participation followed by a vicious attack on the victims who have had the
temerity to challenge authority.
Two days after having had their way with their rigged convention, Nevada
State Democrats formally complained to the National Democratic Committee
that Sanders supporters had tried to disrupt and change the pre-ordained
decisions the state committee had made in closed session and imposed on the
convention. Writing for the state party, general counsel Bradley S. Schrager
dropped the poison pill that has distorted the Nevada narrative ever since.
Schrager's May 16 letter reeks of fearmongering and falsehood. Shrager's
central charge is an Orwellian fabrication that would seem hilarious if it
hadn't been taken seriously by so many credulous, agenda-driven people in
the party and the media. Schrager was widely misquoted as saying the Sanders
campaign has "a penchant for violence." What Schrager actually wrote to the
Rules Committee was much nastier and more hysterical, apparently designed to
inflame enough fear in the party hierarchy to panic it into adopting
draconian rules to stifle dissent at the convention (thereby mimicking the
Nevada convention):
"We believe, unfortunately, that the tactics and behavior on display here in
Nevada are harbingers of things to come as Democrats gather in Philadelphia
in July for our National Convention. We write to alert you to what we
perceive as the Sander Campaign's penchant for extra-parliamentary behavior
- indeed, actual violence - in place of democratic conduct in a convention
setting, and furthermore what we can only describe as their encouragement
of, and complicity in, a very dangerous atmosphere that ended in chaos and
physical threats to fellow Democrats."
Polarizing Democrat lawyer blames the silenced as divisive - seriously
Lawyer Schrager complains of "extra-parliamentary behavior" at a convention
that allowed no meaningful parliamentary behavior. The slippery lawyer
speaks of "actual violence," attributed to no one and for which there is not
one specific example in his three-page single-spaced letter full of ranting
accusations ("threats to her life," "obviously criminal in nature,"
"sparking a street-fight," "an atmosphere of impending eruption," "screams
from bullhorns," "profiting from the chaos," "shock troops," "inciting
disruption," "incendiary, inaccurate, and wholly unauthorized,"
"inflammatory charge," "irrational minority," "lack of conscience," or "the
glee with which they engaged in such destructive behavior.") This is not a
carefully argued legal brief, with specificity and context - it is
essentially a hate letter, apparently intended to provoke further hatred and
repression of free speech within the Democratic Party. Most media ran with
Schrager's version of events, unquestioned (as in The New York Times May 17,
with this provocatively false lede: "Thrown chairs. Leaked cellphone
numbers. Death threats spewed across the Internet."). Schrager's
demonization is not an argument, but it is an ad hominem emotional appeal
that other Democrats (and pundits) have already reacted to without
reasoning. Schrager's letter is also in apparent clear violation of the
state party's Anti-Bullying Policy.
All this has about it some of the stench of 1968, although the parallel is
inexact. But then, as now, a large part of the electorate was incensed at
the party hierarchy - then over the party's obdurate support of the Viet-Nam
war, now over the party's adamant resistance to social change desired by
most of the country. Then as now, the Democratic Party was unresponsive to
its anti-establishment dissenters, then preferring a police riot to silence
dissent over any rational effort at accommodation, now choosing a rigged
convention (with the hint of worse to come). Then as now, the party
hierarchy was rigid and intellectually corrupt. Then the Democratic
hierarchy managed to get Richard Nixon elected. Now . well, we'll see.
Besides the generalized victimization of a raucous convention, the only
actual victim was also one of the victimizers. Convention chair Roberta
Lange, the enforcer for the state committee's secret decisions, held the
first vote on the rules before all the delegates had arrived. The state
committee had secretly given her absolute control over the convention and
sole authority to rule on challenges to her own rulings. Given the brewing
controversy over Nevada delegates since February, Lange's dictatorial
running of the convention was clearly disruptive of the democratic process,
as well as a catalyst for further disruption in response. Lange is not known
to have addressed her exercise of authoritarian style, but she has widely
complained of being a victim of electronic hate mail and hostile phone
calls. She has claimed death threats, but one alleged threat that was
published had a callback number and an offer to discuss what went down at
the convention. She plays the pity card: "I feel threatened everywhere I
go." Of course Lange should not be harassed, but many of the communications
to her are actually political criticism of her actions as a public official.
She may be a victim, but she is in no way an innocent victim.
Bernie Sanders made a cogent response, largely ignored
In a May 18 statement, Sanders first reminded the ostrich-like Democratic
hierarchy of a real world condition they continue to try to deny:
". that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are
outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics. The people
of this country want a government which represents all of us, not just the 1
percent, super PACs and wealthy campaign contributors."
He suggested that the Democratic Party faces an existential choice between
opening its door to people fighting for "real economic and social change,"
or it can choose to maintain its closed-door, corporate, big-money,
service-the-rich current posture. (That's what the state party in Nevada
chose.) Next, Sanders addressed the traducing letter from lawyer Schrager:
"Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a
'penchant for violence.' That is nonsense. Our campaign has held giant
rallies all across this country, including in high-crime areas, and there
have been zero reports of violence. Our campaign of course believes in
non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all
forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals."
[emphasis added]
Sanders then mentioned actual violence against his campaign in Nevada - a
victimless shooting and a break-in/ransacking of staff quarters - that have
not made news. For the remainder of the brief statement, Sanders addressed
behavior of the Democratic Party, especially at the state level, with a
detailed, brief critique of the Nevada convention.
Pundit nonsense is exemplified by the usually cogent Eugene Robinson of the
Washington Post, whose May 19 column began: "Bernie Sanders is playing a
dangerous game. If he and his campaign continue their scorched-earth attacks
against the Democratic Party, they will succeed in only one thing: electing
Donald Trump as president." Wait, who's scorching whose earth? Which Debbie
Wasserman Schultz of the Democratic National Committee has scorched as much
of Sanders' earth as she could, while also spending her time supporting the
payday lenders who shamelessly exploit the poor and contribute to her
campaign? (Bill Moyers sees Wasserman Schultz as a primary source of
Democratic divisiveness.) What planet has Eugene Robinson moved to? He
concludes that Sanders "and his campaign must stop attacking the Democratic
Party in a way that might discourage voters in the fall." He would be more
persuasive and in touch with reality if he warned the Democratic Party to
stop attacking Sanders in a way that will alienate his ten million primary
voters. But the party may achieve that alienation anyway, just by sticking
too closely to the status quo. And surely Robinson knows that.
Another pundit atrocity comes, apparently unintentionally, from Joan Walsh
who describes a number of media Sanders-backers who have backed off after
uncritically accepting the false narrative of Nevada. Then Walsh goes into
conspiracy mode, hinting that the false narrative was not only a true
narrative, but that the Sanders people staged the events (that didn't
happen) with a nefarious purpose: "that the point wasn't the actual
delegates-he trails her by about 280 at this point-but creating the
appearance of a rigged system." Besides rejecting the reality of numerous
elections irregularities (to put it nicely) in this primary season, Walsh
goes on to explain her bias against "male entitlement": " I don't accept the
presumption of moral and ideological superiority from a coalition that is
dominated by white men, trying to overturn the will of black, brown, and
female voters or somehow deem it fraudulent."
Top Democrats reacted without bothering to fact check
Nevada senator Harry Reid, the Democratic minority leader, had already taken
Sanders to task on May 17, based on the false reports of the Nevada
convention - "The violence and all the other bad things that has happened
there," Reid falsely told reporters. The New York Times reported that Reid
said that Sanders faced "a test of leadership" over the behavior of his
supporters, and that Reid said he urged Sanders to "do the right thing."
Neither the Times nor Reid, apparently, explained what "the right thing"
was, nor did they mention the draconian nature of the convention itself.
(The "test of leadership" meme was picked up with equal parrot-like vacuity
by Politico, the Washington Post, The Hill, the LA Times, Daily Kos, the
Chicago Tribune, and the Drudge Report. The media nadir was reached by the
Times with such baldly biased front page headlines as "Sanders Is Urged to
Quell Threats by His Backers - Chairs Fly in Nevada" (May 18) and "Bernie
Sanders, Eyeing Convention, Willing to Harm Hillary Clinton in Homestretch"
(May 19) - since it was actually Clinton's Nevada supporters who were
harming Clinton with their thuggish takeover of the convention.)
What does Harry Reid know about tests of leadership? He can't even lead his
43 fellow Democrats in an effective effort to make the full Senate vote on
the current Supreme Court nominee. Harry Reid has called the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff "incompetent," but during the Viet-Nam war, which he
did not oppose, Harry Reid led from behind as a capitol cop guarding the
House and Senate. Under Harry Reid's leadership, the Democrats' Senate
majority became a minority. Harry Reid called the Iraq War "the worst
foreign policy mistake in the history of this country," but he voted for it.
Bernie Sanders has characterized Iraq the same way, but he voted against it.
The only significant test of leadership that comes to mind with Harry Reid
is that he managed to keep nuclear waste from being buried in his Nevada
backyard at Yucca Mountain. But he's done nothing to keep anyone else safe
and nothing to stem the production of nuclear waste. Harry Reid is the
Democratic establishment personified, and you can count on him for pretty
much nothing.
Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois chimed in based on the false
narrative, as did Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Coons shot his foot into
his mouth, lecturing Sanders on "the importance of respecting the process,"
numb to the notion that in Nevada the process was the problem. Senator
Barbara Boxer of California was at the convention to give a keynote speech
for Hillary Clinton, but when she lit into the Sanders disrupters she was
booed and attacked the crowd, making the booing worse. Boxer claimed she
feared for her safety. By contrast, Democrat Nina Turner, an Ohio State
Senator who was supposed to speak before Boxer but was bumped to later, used
her speaking time to calm the audience: "we got to be calm but committed."
Turner, who was at the convention for almost eight hours, attests that there
was no violence ("nobody tried to do anything violent whatsoever") and that
reports that she was booed were false, even when she said Bernie Sanders was
going all the way to the convention "to make the impossible possible."
Rather tepidly, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California
semi-praised Sanders as "a positive force in the Democratic Party." She said
she was glad to see the energy of Sanders supporters, but warned that "there
are rules that exist." She didn't mention the way Nevada treated rules as a
variable, but she did reject comparisons between 2016 and 1968 as
"ridiculous."
Another, excellent witness report of the convention, at variance from the
false narrative of the party and the media, came from Dan Rolle, Democratic
candidate for Congress in Nevada. Acknowledging that there was a lot of
chaos, Rolle talks for ten minutes about why it happened: the state
committee's decision to take autocratic control of the convention and Chair
Lange's autocratic exercise of her authority.
By Friday, May 21, there were reports that Sanders was calling his fellow
senators and assuring them of what he'd said all along: that he would
support the nominee of the party, once there was a nominee as determined by
the convention. There's no report that anyone in the Democratic
establishment is assuring him of similar support in the event, however
remote, that he is the nominee. That would be a real test of leadership for
Harry Reid and his ilk in the face of a popular political revolution to
change this country in ways establishment Democrats fear because it
threatens their cozy nests of inert but lucrative legalized corruption.
Embracing real change for the rest of the country is a test of leadership
Clinton Democrats act like they're determined to fail by any means
necessary, the consequences be damned.
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, February
19, 2016. (photo: Reuters/David Becker)
/SRCURLONE/SRCURLONE
Clinton to California: "Drop Dead"
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
22 May 16
y now, anyone paying the least attention knows that the dishonest
Democratic establishment and dishonest mainstream media have created a false
narrative of bad behavior by Bernie Sanders supporters at the Nevada State
Democratic State Convention on May 14. The evidence-free claims about
"thrown chairs" (none) and "death threats" (tasteless insults) have been
widely rebutted, but they have served their purpose all the same: taking
attention away from the arrogant, autocratic management of the Nevada
convention by establishment Democrats working on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
It's a measure of Democratic Party panic that party leaders feel the need to
run a despotic convention, autocratically ramming their preferred results
through when there were only two national delegates at stake. Their fear of
Bernie Sanders must run deep for them to follow this authoritarian
performance with a smear campaign based on lies about the Sanders campaign.
Establishment Democrats should be afraid, since almost half the voters
allowed to vote in Democratic primaries reject establishment Democratic
"values." But their shamelessness, pusillanimity, and obtuse arrogance march
on toward a possibly disastrous November that is wholly self-engineered.
Here's what arrogant denial of reality sounded like on CNN May 19, inside
the establishment Democrat echo-chamber: reporter Chris Cuomo tries a
reality based question and Hillary Clinton meets it with almost absolute
denial:
Cuomo (CNN): So you get into the general election, if you're the nominee for
your party, and -
Clinton: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in
effect. There is no way that I won't be.
Cuomo: There's a Senator from Vermont who has a different take on that -
Clinton: Well -
Cuomo: He says he's going to fight to the end -
Clinton: Yeah, it's strange.
Sanders still could pull a rabbit out of the hat for a "miracle ending"
First, let's stipulate that the possibility of Bernie Sanders becoming the
Democratic nominee for President is small. But it's also real. Should he be
able to get 85% of the California vote, he'd get ALL the California
delegates. No wonder establishment Democrats want to pretend the game is
already over. It's close to over, to be sure. By analogy, it's the fourth
quarter and the Patriots are down by two touchdowns, but Tom Brady and his
team have the ball at midfield with all their timeouts remaining. Let's wait
and see what the score really is when the game is really over. (In 2008,
Clinton played out the game, losing 15 of the last 23 contests; this year,
Sanders is winning down the stretch.)
Cuomo's first question is precisely right, despite the "conventional
wisdom," which is a somewhat desperate attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's what Clinton counters with, the self-fulfilling prophecy gambit, and
yet even she can't escape that shred of uncertainty when she says, "in
effect." "In effect" is not a done deal, and wishing won't make it so.
On CNN, Clinton deflects whatever Cuomo was originally intending to ask. He
takes the Sanders bait and, in mealy-mouthed fashion, says Sanders is going
to fight to the end. Clinton cuts him off and calls that "strange." The
candidate's talking point has silenced the reporter, but it hasn't changed
reality: Clinton's nomination, however likely it may seem, also hangs by a
thread. That's a much more interesting story than most of the mainstream
garble. Why would Clinton think her arrogance will help her? Why do
Democrats think running a Potemkin convention in Nevada is necessary to
secure two delegates? Why are Democrats resorting to blatant smears of the
Sanders campaign if the nomination is already secure? If establishment
Democrats actually believe that party unity is important, why have they
ramped up their divisiveness?
On CNN, his reality-based question, Cuomo switches to the false narrative of
Nevada that goes unexamined: "his supporters have become more aggressive..
We saw what happened in Nevada.. Did you feel that Sanders responded in the
right way?" That is profoundly dishonest and unprofessional: Cuomo assumes a
false reality, while ignoring the reality of the rigged convention, and then
tosses Clinton a softball question. She affirms the false narrative ("what
we saw there was disturbing") and slides past the question ("I have every
confidence we're going to be unified") and speaks falsely about 2008 ("I won
9 out of the last 12 contests"). Clinton goes on and on with a false analogy
about 2008, talking about how she and Obama worked for unity AFTER all the
primaries were over. Cuomo just smiles and nods, as if he believes Clinton's
nonsense is relevant, when it's obviously not.
Revolution is hard, non-violent revolution is much harder
Bernie Sanders is fighting for a political revolution. He is doing it with
nonviolence, working within the two-party system. The Democratic Party is
not a revolutionary party, and hasn't even been close since the Johnson
years in the sixties. Establishment Democrats like the Clintons are
fundamentally counter-revolutionary, which is a problem for a party with ten
million voters favoring the political revolution candidate. The Republican
party is so intellectually corrupt that it fell apart facing the Trump
challenge, and is now falling in line with it. Democrats still have enough
party discipline (or top-down undemocratic hierarchy) that they can muster
the ugly pushback that featured a convention with no meaningful
participation followed by a vicious attack on the victims who have had the
temerity to challenge authority.
Two days after having had their way with their rigged convention, Nevada
State Democrats formally complained to the National Democratic Committee
that Sanders supporters had tried to disrupt and change the pre-ordained
decisions the state committee had made in closed session and imposed on the
convention. Writing for the state party, general counsel Bradley S. Schrager
dropped the poison pill that has distorted the Nevada narrative ever since.
Schrager's May 16 letter reeks of fearmongering and falsehood. Shrager's
central charge is an Orwellian fabrication that would seem hilarious if it
hadn't been taken seriously by so many credulous, agenda-driven people in
the party and the media. Schrager was widely misquoted as saying the Sanders
campaign has "a penchant for violence." What Schrager actually wrote to the
Rules Committee was much nastier and more hysterical, apparently designed to
inflame enough fear in the party hierarchy to panic it into adopting
draconian rules to stifle dissent at the convention (thereby mimicking the
Nevada convention):
"We believe, unfortunately, that the tactics and behavior on display here in
Nevada are harbingers of things to come as Democrats gather in Philadelphia
in July for our National Convention. We write to alert you to what we
perceive as the Sander Campaign's penchant for extra-parliamentary behavior
- indeed, actual violence - in place of democratic conduct in a convention
setting, and furthermore what we can only describe as their encouragement
of, and complicity in, a very dangerous atmosphere that ended in chaos and
physical threats to fellow Democrats."
Polarizing Democrat lawyer blames the silenced as divisive - seriously
Lawyer Schrager complains of "extra-parliamentary behavior" at a convention
that allowed no meaningful parliamentary behavior. The slippery lawyer
speaks of "actual violence," attributed to no one and for which there is not
one specific example in his three-page single-spaced letter full of ranting
accusations ("threats to her life," "obviously criminal in nature,"
"sparking a street-fight," "an atmosphere of impending eruption," "screams
from bullhorns," "profiting from the chaos," "shock troops," "inciting
disruption," "incendiary, inaccurate, and wholly unauthorized,"
"inflammatory charge," "irrational minority," "lack of conscience," or "the
glee with which they engaged in such destructive behavior.") This is not a
carefully argued legal brief, with specificity and context - it is
essentially a hate letter, apparently intended to provoke further hatred and
repression of free speech within the Democratic Party. Most media ran with
Schrager's version of events, unquestioned (as in The New York Times May 17,
with this provocatively false lede: "Thrown chairs. Leaked cellphone
numbers. Death threats spewed across the Internet."). Schrager's
demonization is not an argument, but it is an ad hominem emotional appeal
that other Democrats (and pundits) have already reacted to without
reasoning. Schrager's letter is also in apparent clear violation of the
state party's Anti-Bullying Policy.
All this has about it some of the stench of 1968, although the parallel is
inexact. But then, as now, a large part of the electorate was incensed at
the party hierarchy - then over the party's obdurate support of the Viet-Nam
war, now over the party's adamant resistance to social change desired by
most of the country. Then as now, the Democratic Party was unresponsive to
its anti-establishment dissenters, then preferring a police riot to silence
dissent over any rational effort at accommodation, now choosing a rigged
convention (with the hint of worse to come). Then as now, the party
hierarchy was rigid and intellectually corrupt. Then the Democratic
hierarchy managed to get Richard Nixon elected. Now . well, we'll see.
Besides the generalized victimization of a raucous convention, the only
actual victim was also one of the victimizers. Convention chair Roberta
Lange, the enforcer for the state committee's secret decisions, held the
first vote on the rules before all the delegates had arrived. The state
committee had secretly given her absolute control over the convention and
sole authority to rule on challenges to her own rulings. Given the brewing
controversy over Nevada delegates since February, Lange's dictatorial
running of the convention was clearly disruptive of the democratic process,
as well as a catalyst for further disruption in response. Lange is not known
to have addressed her exercise of authoritarian style, but she has widely
complained of being a victim of electronic hate mail and hostile phone
calls. She has claimed death threats, but one alleged threat that was
published had a callback number and an offer to discuss what went down at
the convention. She plays the pity card: "I feel threatened everywhere I
go." Of course Lange should not be harassed, but many of the communications
to her are actually political criticism of her actions as a public official.
She may be a victim, but she is in no way an innocent victim.
Bernie Sanders made a cogent response, largely ignored
In a May 18 statement, Sanders first reminded the ostrich-like Democratic
hierarchy of a real world condition they continue to try to deny:
". that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are
outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics. The people
of this country want a government which represents all of us, not just the 1
percent, super PACs and wealthy campaign contributors."
He suggested that the Democratic Party faces an existential choice between
opening its door to people fighting for "real economic and social change,"
or it can choose to maintain its closed-door, corporate, big-money,
service-the-rich current posture. (That's what the state party in Nevada
chose.) Next, Sanders addressed the traducing letter from lawyer Schrager:
"Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a
'penchant for violence.' That is nonsense. Our campaign has held giant
rallies all across this country, including in high-crime areas, and there
have been zero reports of violence. Our campaign of course believes in
non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all
forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals."
[emphasis added]
Sanders then mentioned actual violence against his campaign in Nevada - a
victimless shooting and a break-in/ransacking of staff quarters - that have
not made news. For the remainder of the brief statement, Sanders addressed
behavior of the Democratic Party, especially at the state level, with a
detailed, brief critique of the Nevada convention.
Pundit nonsense is exemplified by the usually cogent Eugene Robinson of the
Washington Post, whose May 19 column began: "Bernie Sanders is playing a
dangerous game. If he and his campaign continue their scorched-earth attacks
against the Democratic Party, they will succeed in only one thing: electing
Donald Trump as president." Wait, who's scorching whose earth? Which Debbie
Wasserman Schultz of the Democratic National Committee has scorched as much
of Sanders' earth as she could, while also spending her time supporting the
payday lenders who shamelessly exploit the poor and contribute to her
campaign? (Bill Moyers sees Wasserman Schultz as a primary source of
Democratic divisiveness.) What planet has Eugene Robinson moved to? He
concludes that Sanders "and his campaign must stop attacking the Democratic
Party in a way that might discourage voters in the fall." He would be more
persuasive and in touch with reality if he warned the Democratic Party to
stop attacking Sanders in a way that will alienate his ten million primary
voters. But the party may achieve that alienation anyway, just by sticking
too closely to the status quo. And surely Robinson knows that.
Another pundit atrocity comes, apparently unintentionally, from Joan Walsh
who describes a number of media Sanders-backers who have backed off after
uncritically accepting the false narrative of Nevada. Then Walsh goes into
conspiracy mode, hinting that the false narrative was not only a true
narrative, but that the Sanders people staged the events (that didn't
happen) with a nefarious purpose: "that the point wasn't the actual
delegates-he trails her by about 280 at this point-but creating the
appearance of a rigged system." Besides rejecting the reality of numerous
elections irregularities (to put it nicely) in this primary season, Walsh
goes on to explain her bias against "male entitlement": " I don't accept the
presumption of moral and ideological superiority from a coalition that is
dominated by white men, trying to overturn the will of black, brown, and
female voters or somehow deem it fraudulent."
Top Democrats reacted without bothering to fact check
Nevada senator Harry Reid, the Democratic minority leader, had already taken
Sanders to task on May 17, based on the false reports of the Nevada
convention - "The violence and all the other bad things that has happened
there," Reid falsely told reporters. The New York Times reported that Reid
said that Sanders faced "a test of leadership" over the behavior of his
supporters, and that Reid said he urged Sanders to "do the right thing."
Neither the Times nor Reid, apparently, explained what "the right thing"
was, nor did they mention the draconian nature of the convention itself.
(The "test of leadership" meme was picked up with equal parrot-like vacuity
by Politico, the Washington Post, The Hill, the LA Times, Daily Kos, the
Chicago Tribune, and the Drudge Report. The media nadir was reached by the
Times with such baldly biased front page headlines as "Sanders Is Urged to
Quell Threats by His Backers - Chairs Fly in Nevada" (May 18) and "Bernie
Sanders, Eyeing Convention, Willing to Harm Hillary Clinton in Homestretch"
(May 19) - since it was actually Clinton's Nevada supporters who were
harming Clinton with their thuggish takeover of the convention.)
What does Harry Reid know about tests of leadership? He can't even lead his
43 fellow Democrats in an effective effort to make the full Senate vote on
the current Supreme Court nominee. Harry Reid has called the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff "incompetent," but during the Viet-Nam war, which he
did not oppose, Harry Reid led from behind as a capitol cop guarding the
House and Senate. Under Harry Reid's leadership, the Democrats' Senate
majority became a minority. Harry Reid called the Iraq War "the worst
foreign policy mistake in the history of this country," but he voted for it.
Bernie Sanders has characterized Iraq the same way, but he voted against it.
The only significant test of leadership that comes to mind with Harry Reid
is that he managed to keep nuclear waste from being buried in his Nevada
backyard at Yucca Mountain. But he's done nothing to keep anyone else safe
and nothing to stem the production of nuclear waste. Harry Reid is the
Democratic establishment personified, and you can count on him for pretty
much nothing.
Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois chimed in based on the false
narrative, as did Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Coons shot his foot into
his mouth, lecturing Sanders on "the importance of respecting the process,"
numb to the notion that in Nevada the process was the problem. Senator
Barbara Boxer of California was at the convention to give a keynote speech
for Hillary Clinton, but when she lit into the Sanders disrupters she was
booed and attacked the crowd, making the booing worse. Boxer claimed she
feared for her safety. By contrast, Democrat Nina Turner, an Ohio State
Senator who was supposed to speak before Boxer but was bumped to later, used
her speaking time to calm the audience: "we got to be calm but committed."
Turner, who was at the convention for almost eight hours, attests that there
was no violence ("nobody tried to do anything violent whatsoever") and that
reports that she was booed were false, even when she said Bernie Sanders was
going all the way to the convention "to make the impossible possible."
Rather tepidly, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California
semi-praised Sanders as "a positive force in the Democratic Party." She said
she was glad to see the energy of Sanders supporters, but warned that "there
are rules that exist." She didn't mention the way Nevada treated rules as a
variable, but she did reject comparisons between 2016 and 1968 as
"ridiculous."
Another, excellent witness report of the convention, at variance from the
false narrative of the party and the media, came from Dan Rolle, Democratic
candidate for Congress in Nevada. Acknowledging that there was a lot of
chaos, Rolle talks for ten minutes about why it happened: the state
committee's decision to take autocratic control of the convention and Chair
Lange's autocratic exercise of her authority.
By Friday, May 21, there were reports that Sanders was calling his fellow
senators and assuring them of what he'd said all along: that he would
support the nominee of the party, once there was a nominee as determined by
the convention. There's no report that anyone in the Democratic
establishment is assuring him of similar support in the event, however
remote, that he is the nominee. That would be a real test of leadership for
Harry Reid and his ilk in the face of a popular political revolution to
change this country in ways establishment Democrats fear because it
threatens their cozy nests of inert but lucrative legalized corruption.
Embracing real change for the rest of the country is a test of leadership
Clinton Democrats act like they're determined to fail by any means
necessary, the consequences be damned.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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