DNC corruption 2.0.

  

Mark Twain once wrote that if you give a man the reputation of an early riser, he can sleep till noon. This acute insight is perfectly applied to the Democratic party in the US. But the reputation is wearing ever so thin as the Democrats have kindly, through their actions, given a text book illustration of hypocrisy once more with the contrasting way they have treated two of their candidates, Bloomberg versus Gabbard.

For anyone paying slightly more attention than reading headlines from The Guardian or the New York Times, it would be clear that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is woefully corrupt. Its actions show blatantly that despite the Democrats’ ostentatious waving of the ‘progressive’ banners about minorities, women, equity et cetera, it is run more like a mafia, where the jostling for power, the angling for the moral high ground, and the maintenance of self-interests, rather than democracy and ethics, decides the outcomes.

The recent and sudden decision of the DNC to drastically alter the requirements for Democratic candidates to enter the February 19^th debate opens the door for the Former New York Mayor and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg. The rule change doubled the polling threshold and got rid of individual donor requirements – an indication of grass root support, and a marker which the self-funded billionaire Bloomberg does not meet.  As it happens, Bloomberg gave the DNC $300K two days before he entered the race. He had also given $10 million to House Democrats in late 2019, as well as millions in previous years.

While happy to alter the procedures in a significant fashion mid-way through a primary for a man worth more than $60 billion, despite the the ire of other candidates who had to work hard to meet these requirements thus far, the same DNC would not budge the rules even an inch for a woman of colour and an army veteran in Tulsi Gabbard. And the rule in question pertaining Gabbard draws attention to the glaringly corrupt nature of the DNC.

The rule regards the criteria for a candidate to be eligible to participate in a Democrat debate. In August of 2019, Gabbard was denied a chance to enter the September and October Democrat debates. She had met the 130,000 unique donor criteria but she needed to poll >2% in four of DNC-approved polls. Gabbard had exceeded 2% support in 26 national and early state polls but only two of those were on the DNC-approved list, despite RealClearPolitics data suggesting that many of the polls, such as by The Economist, are more accurate than some of the DNC-approved polls. Her polling average was indeed ahead of the likes of Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rouke, who were granted entry to the debate.  

In November of 2019, the DNC decided not to accept the Suffolk University Poll by Boston Globe, the most widely read newspaper in New Hampshire. That poll happens to show that Gabbard was at a favourable 6%. The exclusion of the Boston Globe poll left Gabbard one poll short of qualifying for the December debate. To ram home the ridiculousness of the DNC’s decision on what is ‘approved polling’, Gabbard received >2% in a poll conducted by the polling agency YouGov, sponsored by CBS. This was on the DNC’s approved list of polls. However, she had also gotten >2% in five additional polls also conducted by YouGov. They were however not accepted by the DNC, despite being conducted by the same pollster, because they were sponsored by The Economist.

But the DNC will reset the entire rule book for a billionaire donor who gives them wads of cash.

This behaviour might even surprise anyone who remembers the last election cycle. In 2016, leaked emails from the DNC clearly showed that it favoured the Clinton camp at the expense of her biggest rival, Bernie Sanders, through active collusion with the media (including leaking CNN debate questions to the Clinton campaign), corrupt handling of party funds and the Machiavellian way that it uses nonsensical rules to pave the way for Clinton, at the expense of her opponents and the voters. These revelations led to the shameful resignation of the Chairperson of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Communications Director Luis Miranda.

In a close run election between Clinton and Trump, the dissatisfied Democratic voters, many of whom Sanders supporters, may have proven decisive to Clinton’s defeat by going elsewhere, whether the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, or even Trump.

Tulsi Gabbard was the vice-Chair of the DNC in 2016. She quit her post amid the revelations of the corruption and unethical conduct of the DNC and endorsed Bernie Sanders and called for an over-haul of the DNC. Needless to say, this did not make her popular with the DNC and the Clintons.

As natural as it is for water to flow downhill, with this in mind, her treatment recently by the DNC and the leftist media is easy to explain. Gabbard was the most Googled candidate after the first Democratic debate, where she literally eviscerated Kamala Harris’s candidature by pointing out some uncomfortable truths. At this critical juncture, Google, for no discernible reason, suspended her advertisement account.

Gabbard was accused by Hilary Clinton of being a Russian asset (rather rich from a woman who has taken millions from Russian companies), with this completely baseless accusation repeated by Clintonsurrogates on the media. But Gabbard, who had serve in Iraq, is not one to shy away from a fight. She is suing both Google and Clinton for damages.

CNN, whose continued plummet in ratings reflect its self-appointed role as the Clinton megaphone, has further not invited Gabbard to its townhalls just before the New Hampshire Primaries, despite inviting other candidates who are polling lower than her in New Hampshire, like Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer. In further pettiness, the DNC did not include Gabbard in their 2020 unity ad, featuring other Democrat candidates. Using an unity ad to exclude an ethnic minority woman of colour (the first Hindu as well as Samoan-American member of congress) and an army medic who is trying to be the first female US president perfectly illustrates the complete contradiction of the Democratic Party's words and deeds. 

The collusion between the DNC and the leftist media like CNN mean that for candidates like Gabbard, conservative networks will often give them a fairer hearing. The same was the case for Marianne Williamson, another Democrat candidate who dropped out earlier in 2019. She was caught on a hot-mic lamenting the fact that “Fox news is nicer to me than the lefties are”.

It’s not surprising why Gabbard is viewed positively by the people on the right – she represents one of the few Democrats running who is clearly principled and who does not bend with whatever whimsical wind that happens to blow along among the leftists. In other words, she has some common sense. Sadly, the number of prominent Democrats like her, who can genuinely unite the left and right, can be counted with one hand, with some fingers to spare.

Not having learned anything from the lessons of 2016, the DNC has named more Clinton loyalists as members of the committee like John Podesta. A more mobbed up lot will be hard to find outside of a Mario Puzo novel. 

Nietzsche wrote that “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” For the youths, or indeed grown-ups, who still somehow maintain the illusion that the current Democratic Party stands for egalitarianism, the working class and democracy, you might be well advised to dig a little deeper.