• @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    All true but I don’t agree that this meant there wasn’t a primary. They just conspired to win the primary.

    Also, don’t presume to know the future. Maybe the revolution will start in South Carolina. State politics don’t change overnight but they are also not as static as we often assume.

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        Well I think this is not a black and white issue. In Russia, Sanders would be arrested or killed. Here the oligarchs don’t have complete power, and if we assume they do, we cede them more power. Sanders could have won the primary—it was not a foregone conclusion. And I think your assumption that South Carolina is only party loyalists is mistaken. If the left wing speaks to those voters directly, they can be persuaded.

        • @[email protected]
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          610 months ago

          Let’s also not ignore the fact that the DNC runs the primaries, and the eventually nominee is purely their decision. Effectively, the actual primaries are more for them to gauge the popularity of various candidates.

          Let’s also not pretend that they were ever going to let Sanders be their nominee… someone who’s not even a party member.

          It would be more surprising if he’d won the primary process and the DNC actually backed him than the alternative of them simply saying no, he’s not a party member, we’ll choose the highest finishing actual Democrat instead.

          • @[email protected]
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            210 months ago

            Let’s also not ignore the fact that the DNC runs the primaries, and the eventually nominee is purely their decision.

            …what William Greider said here, basically.

          • @[email protected]
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            110 months ago

            So you admit that the primaries are a facade and that we are not a democracy?

            In which case, we should openly admit that and teach our children as such. Otherwise, China will do so for us on TikTok and elsewhere

            • @[email protected]
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              210 months ago

              What’s the deal with people on Lemmy always trying to get people to “admit” shit? If you want to engage in conversation just do so. There’s no need to try to paint another conversation participant as an opponent and corner them into anything, just say what you have to say. I’m not trying to attack or defend primaries, just making an observation, so there’s nothing to “admit”, so you can knock off with that angle.

              Further, the primaries, despite what you may think, are not a part of the national democratic election process. They are a function of the parties themselves, a way for them to gauge their members and choose a nominee.

              If a party wanted to, there’s no reason they couldn’t cancel their primary entirely and simply have party leadership meet and choose a nominee, end of story. That doesn’t make the American process any more or less of a democracy. It may make that party’s process of choosing a nominee more or less democratic, but each party is and should remain within their rights to choose their own nominee in whatever way they see fit.

              I’m not aligned with or registered to any political party, and in my state, that means I’m completely barred from voting in the primaries at all. In my city, one party has held the mayor’s office my entire life, so the primary for that party is effectively the race for that seat, and I don’t get to vote in it. I’m not upset about that. I can still vote in the actual race, and as a non-party-member, I agree with their leadership that I shouldn’t have a say in who they select as their nominee.