And what if those emails were between the Chief of Police and captains of several precincts?
It depends on who sent the emails, how and to whom. If people felt free to send bigoted emails around the office using the office email system, I would have some strong suspicions, wouldn’t you?
If the police leadership felt comfortable talking about how to deal with their Jewish problem, how comfortable would you feel that they felt they could send that sort of shit around the office even if it gets shot down by the chief of police?
This wasn’t two guys in the mailroom.
The fact that they would feel free to share these belief with their superiors at work in discussions about their Jewish problem would say a lot about the general attitudes of the police department.
So some former Sanders campaign person says the election wasn’t stolen. OK. I don’t see anyone on this thread saying that Sanders would have won. That doesn’t cleanse the taint of bias and it doesn’t make the weak ass excuses that people are making any less weak ass. We literally have people in this thread saying that if the DNC DID act on a bias in favor of Hillary and against Bernie, that would be a feature not a bug.
‘Being fair’ and ‘swearing to see all candidates as equally likely the win the general’ are not the same thing.
‘Being fair’ is a general (and commendable) position for any organization to embrace.
Promising to believe that all candidates have the same chance to win in a general election, on the other hand, is a nutty position that few respectable organizations would embrace. Because, you know, it is not the case that all candidates have the same chance to win in the general.
“We literally have people in this thread saying that if the DNC DID act on a bias in favor of Hillary and against Bernie, that would be a feature not a bug.”
So this attitude is independent of whether or not they did, people seem to think it would be a GOOD thing if they acted on that bias.
Primaries are generally the way you determine who is most electable. The primary voters pick their candidate based in part on electability. That’s why Obama had to run against McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. Noone needed to tilt the playing field to keep the nomination away from Alan Keyes or Ron Paul in 2008 and no one needed to tilt the playing field to keep the nomination away from Michele Bachman and Newt Gingrich in 2012. There weren’t any leaked emails of RNC members plotting how to secure the nomination for McCain or Romney.
If the DNC has such a good bead on who is most electable then why even bother with primaries? Just to give the illusion of democracy?
"“We literally have people in this thread saying that if the DNC DID act on a bias in favor of Hillary and against Bernie, that would be a feature not a bug.”
So this attitude is independent of whether or not they did, people seem to think it would be a GOOD thing if they acted on that bias."
No ifs ands or buts. They think that acting on that bias would have been a good thing. Do you agree or are you just evading the issue?
No one tilted the playing field on the Dem side in 2016.
The RNC however has actually done some shady shit and not just talked about in private emails. In 2016 the RNC made signatures magically disappear from petitions in order to avoid a roll call vote on convention rules. In 2012 the changed rules using a bullshit voice vote to strip some delegates away from Ron Paul.
These are actual actions and not just words in private. Show me the actions the DNC took to tilt the playing field and you might have something. I am willing to be convinced if you show me something. An email sent in May after Sanders was too far behind to possibly catch up that also did not impact a single vote is not tilting the playing field.
That is irrelevant. OMFG, I am not saying that they did anything. I can prove bias but not that they acted on that bias, and you can’t prove they didn’t. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
but all of that is irrelevant. There is ABSOLUTELY a sentiment in this thread that it would be OK if they DID tilt the playing field.
Is that what you are saying too? that it would be OK for the DNC to tilt the playing field in favor of one candidate over another?
Show me emails from the RNC. All you have is some republicans bitching that they weren’t given a fair shot in one way or another. The Bernie bros had THAT much before the emails. heck they’re still bitching and you guys are saying "fuck you Bernie bros, we don’t have to give your candidate a fair shot because the DNC has no obligation to be fair and in fact it SHOULDN"T be fair. Acting on bias is a feature not a flaw.
You seem to be using some very idiosyncratic logic throughout this thread; your argument appears to be:
PREMISE: Some people who post on the SDMB believe that in the present American Presidential election system, it’s reasonable for the leaders of each of the two major parties to believe one candidate more likely to win in the general election than others.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, underhanded conduct by the party leaders must have occurred!
Somehow you are getting from 'beliefs held by people posting here’ to ‘actions committed by leaders of the DNC.’ And I’m just not seeing how you’re making that leap.
I don’t know if it rises to the level of proof, but I don’t think a reasonable person can look at what happened in primaries and conclude that the DNC tilted the playing field. The primary process is relatively transparent and the DNC only has control over a few parts of that process. They have some control over the schedule of primaries, the debate schedule, and how delegates and superdelgates are assigned. All of the rules they set were in place before Sanders threw his hat in the ring. Here absence of evidence is evidence of absence, because the absence of evidence that the DNC changed any rules is in fact evidence that they didn’t change any rules.
Individual state level democratic parties also have some control over how primaries are conducted in each state. Some state’s rules were more favorable to Clinton, but some state’s rules were more favorable to Sanders. The important part is that every state’s rules were in place before Sanders declared as a candidate. If, after Sanders entered the race, all the caucus states switched to closed primaries this would evidence of tilting the playing field. Once again absence of evidence that this occurred is evidence that this did not occur.
Other than that there is nothing the DNC can really do to tilt the playing field and there’s no way for them to tilt the playing that wouldn’t be noticed.
I do not share this sentiment. This, however, seems like a problem you have with posters in this thread and not with the DNC or Debbie Wasserman Schultz. If that’s the only thing you want to discuss, you should probably restrict your posts to that topic.
I believe the primary rules should be set in advance, transparent to all candidates, and applied equally to all candidates. This is what happened in this primary. Sanders knew the rules and knew he had a tough road ahead of him, not because the playing was tilted, but because he was much less popular among democrats than the person he chose to run against. He closed that gap throughout the process, but he never closed it completely.
Some may argue that the closed primaries some states used tilted the playing field toward Clinton, but I don’t think so. First, I believe state level democratic parties should be able to have some control over who participates in their primaries as long as the rules are transparent, non-discriminatory, and there is a low barrier to entry. And secondly, all the rules were in place when Sanders entered the race. No one tried to restrict or open up access once the candidates were known.
Are you familiar with the phrase, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”?
Large swaths of the Republican party hate Trump. I would be absolutely stunned if there were no emails sent between RNC members about Trump and how to stop him, but the RNC didn’t get hacked so we may never know. I don’t, however, think that such an email would be evidence that RNC tilted the playing field away from Trump because the RNC, like the DNC, doesn’t have that much control.
However, at least one state level Republican party did tilt the playing field this year. Kentucky held a Republican Caucus this year instead of a primary this year like they usually do. This change was made for the benefit of exactly one guy, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.