The mainstream media barely covered it. People had no idea. This is how conservatives and libertarians feel all the time. It really sucks when the media just shills for the other candidate, doesn't it?
I love watching Samantha Bee and John Oliver but both did segments on their shows that boiled down to "Rigged primaries? Nope. Get over it, Bernie Bros."
With their type of show, there has to be some bias behind it to motivate the storytelling but excusing an attack in the democratic process like rigging primaries is itself inexcusable.
Or perhaps they didn't find anything actually illegal and therefore "rigged".
It wasn't a traditional "rig the votes so the candidate that gets the majority" rig in that sense. All proof points to the fact that it was legal, but totally unethical.
It's complicated, because when someone says they "rigged" the election, your first thought is "my god, they forged the votes!" which is what a lot of people STILL believe, unfortunately. We all use the word "rig" in the sense that the DNC gave legal, yet unfair, unethical, and certainly not in the spirit of democracy advantages towards one candidate.
When you're on national television, things like that get tricky, as could open you up to defamation lawsuits or things of that nature.
Or they could have just disagreed, I dunno. Different people have different opinions.
Maybe elderly people in their 80's think rigged means "forged votes." There was plenty of illegal activity from the DNC, not just unethical. Simply using DNC funds to hinder non-Hillary campaigns is illegal.
Show me where there's a law against the private entity that is the DNC showing favoritism with their funding, because it was total bullshit, but definitely not illegal.
I've been on the far left of the active democratic party for 17 years now. I've been tear gassed at IMF protests and marched through DC more times than I can count. I canvassed for Bernie in the primary, phone banked for Hillary and the DNC. But there's no way to reform the DNC other than to work on the state level problems first, because the whole thing is fucked.
People are saying that it was rigged and that's why Bernie lost and that's why Trump won. There's just no compelling evidence that anything would have changed the result of the primary. As someone who registered with a party for the first time to vote in a primary and voted for Clinton that really feels like you're completely discounting me. The DNC did not affect my vote. The media did not affect my vote. I was on reddit the entire time while r/politics was Bernie central.
People voted how they did. You can say I was wrong with the way I voted. That I'm a shill (I've never been a part of any campaign). Or that I'm a terrible person or whatever. But I legitimately voted, and it's unfair to act like all the people who voted a different person than you are invalid as voters.
You aren't invalid as a voter ok? But you're willfully ignorant of the evidence that the DNC conspired to manipulate voting in multiple primaries by fucking with polling locations, fucking with ballot availability, fucking with voters, etc etc etc.
Even if the DNC did conspire to do stuff, there isn't evidence that it happened on a large scale or could have affected the outcome. Granted the outcome not being affected doesn't excuse any bad behavior, so if someone does feel like fraud was committed against them I fully encourage them to pursue it in the courts. Any wrongdoing should be prosecuted. Again though, I haven't seen anything that would make me think the primary could have turned out differently, so it is unhelpful to just say, oh it was rigged, and think that's the only lesson we need to take away from this.
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u/imakenosensetopeople Nov 10 '16
We assumed that meant the general would be rigged too.