Bernie's End
Today, the morning after the Associated Press and other media outlets declared Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee. Glenn Greenwald gave the perfect headline:
Perfect End to Democratic Primary: Anonymous Superdelegates Declare Winner Through Media
On the one hand, I understand why Bernie supporters are pissed-off about the media making this announcement on the eve of the California primary (taking place as I write). Bernie defeating Hillary in California would demonstrate her political weakness (always a good thing). Today’s announcement will likely depress the vote and make that less likely, and it would be naïve not to suspect that this announcement was made because someone wanted just that.
On the other hand, what we’re seeing here is only the reality of the Democratic Party made blatant. Pace Bernie and his supporters, the problem here is not that the media is reporting about superdelegates and how they say they’re going to vote. The problem is the superdelegate system itself, and what it exemplifies about the Democratic Party. Sandernistas love to show the math and the dates, and insist that, really, the 750 superdelegates have not yet voted. But the reality here—the political math—is that Bernie is not going to persuade hundreds of superdelegates to switch to him. The political reality is that those superdelegates were put in place to prevent someone like him from ever getting the nomination. And they are going to do their job. For which they are well paid in various ways. Bernie and his supporters are running into the Democratic Party wall, and they don’t want to hear it.
It’s not the media, but the Sanders campaign, that is perpetuating a diversionary myth—in this case, about who and what the superdelegates are. They are, in the main, not political actors amenable to reason or ethics in figuring out who is the best candidate, but agents of the money and power interests that control the Party, appointed to vote as those interests wish. Which is worse: To report the political truth or perpetuate a political myth?