Not exactly a super ending to the Dem race

Thanks to MAL for mentioning this article from Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept (the online site started by Wisconsin's own Jeremy Scahill). I can accept that Hillary Clinton will very likely be the nominee of the Democratic Party, and I'll vote for her over Drumpf this November, assuming it comes to that. But as Greenwald mentions, the way certain news organization named her the winner was so telling- via backroom deals with superdelegates, and not through earning a victory at the polls.

This is the perfect symbolic ending to the Democratic Party primary: The nomination is consecrated by a media organization, on a day when nobody voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment insiders and donors whose identities the media organization — incredibly — conceals. The decisive edifice of superdelegates is itself anti-democratic and inherently corrupt: designed to prevent actual voters from making choices that the party establishment dislikes. But for a party run by insiders and funded by corporate interests, it’s only fitting that its nomination process ends with such an ignominious, awkward, and undemocratic sputter.

None of this is to deny that Hillary Clinton — as was always the case from the start — is highly likely to be the legitimately chosen winner of this process. It’s true that the party’s governing rules are deliberately undemocratic; unfair and even corrupt decisions were repeatedly made by party officials to benefit Clinton; and the ostensibly neutral Democratic National Committee (led by the incomparably heinous Debbie Wasserman Schultz) constantly put not just its thumb but its entire body on the scale to ensure she won. But it’s also true that under the long-standing rules of the party, more people who voted preferred Clinton as their nominee over Sanders. Independent of superdelegates, she just got more votes. There’s no denying that...

That the Democratic Party nominating process is declared to be over in such an uninspiring, secretive, and elite-driven manner is perfectly symbolic of what the party, and its likely nominee, actually is. The one positive aspect [Clinton being the first female nominee of a major party in U.S. history], though significant, is symbolic, while the actual substance — rallying behind a Wall Street-funded, status quo-perpetuating, multimillionaire militarist — is grim in the extreme. The Democratic Party got exactly the ending it deserved.

And make no mistake, it was Hillary's connections with superdelegates that gave her a dominant position in this race, and not her connection with voters. Making deals with hundreds of superdelegates before a single vote was cast and gobbling up big money likely drove some capable candidates out of the race, leaving Bernie Sanders as her only declared opposition by the end of the Iowa primary. Maybe Hillary was the best Democrat out there to be president in 2016 (not named Warren, who would have won in a walk), but the current system and the favoritism of DWS and the DNC made it a whole lot easier for Clinton.

This system has to be changed. The Democrats in Wisconsin seem to agree, as they voted over the weekend to demand that superdelegates vote in proportion with the state's voters, or ban them entirely. I actually see a point to having superdelegates, as the circumstances when people voted in February and March could be very different than the circumstances at the convention in July (the absurd length of these campaigns is another issue that should be addressed). But they need to come into the equation AFTER ALL STATES HAVE VOTED.

So how do you do this? Simple- have all superdelegates not be chosen until June, when all of the states have voted. Then choose the superdelegates at a party convention through secret ballot, or through a committee where both candidates are represented. It could be done in a similar style to how Dems in Wisconsin chose their pledged candidates, which took a while, but it seemed to work well without chaos or hard feelings. It also would end the perversion of the vote that happens when superdelegates like Tammy Baldwin come out and say she's gonna vote for her girl Hills regardless of what the voters say, and also prevents a candidate from having a false meme of "leading" when no votes have been cast.

There's a better way, and this arduous process in 2016 has illustrated just how far away we are from having the "best democracy in the world." Let's get to work on it, and get back to something more democratic and sensible in 2020, shall we?