There have recently been several analyses of Democratic Party voting patterns–all reporting growing liberalization. That’s no great revelation but vetting the methodology used would be essential here: who were they polling? what were the issues they asked about? where did they find people who identify with the DP? Because the DP isn’t really a membership organization; it’s an electoral apparatus that puts forth candidates who others vote for. Those voters do not meet to democratically decide the politics or the candidates of the DP; that’s all done by an elite behind closed doors with a retinue of hacks & hangers-on as enforcers.
The elite Democratic Party leadership recently warned Sanders’ supporters against making any unseemly displays of outrage when the superdelegates come swooping in from outer space at the July convention to name Clinton the nominee. They’ve been put on notice to “behave.” Or what? The leadership will call the cops? Give them a stern talking to? Give them the naughty finger & a spanking? What kind of political relationship does the leadership have with its constituents? It certainly can’t be called democratic.
To counter the obvious contradiction between Sanders’ massive rallies & the handful of elite, unelected superdelegates, Clinton is insisting that rallies do not translate into electoral victory. Not in a rigged system they sure don’t.
That the electoral game is rigged & controlled by an unelected elite is no surprise to anyone not fumbling with delusions. That progressives continue to believe the DP plays, or has the potential to play (by being pushed to the left), a role in social progress is the central conundrum of US politics. In the DP world of realpolitik, such delusions are the child’s play of politics. But in the world of social movements, they’re political dead-ends.
Working people are way ahead of progressives on the DP & in their majority do not participate in the electoral scam. Democratic enfranchisement is an achievement of the great democratic revolutions that overthrew feudalism & brought in capitalist rule. Winning the vote for women, Blacks, & others denied it was a major advance. But it should not be wasted on two-bit hustlers or be fetishized & used as the bellwether of social transformation.