this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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Are There Any Liberals Tired of the Tribalism From Bernie Bros & MAGA? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago by BadmanDan@lemmy.world to c/politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
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I remember the Hilary PUMA voters protesting Obama’s victory in 2008, but I don’t remember them saying it was rigged.

We’re years removed from 2016 and 2020, and yet both the far left and far right are accusing democrats of rigging elections. NOBODY cares about who dropped out and endorsed someone, or the media wanting one candidate over the other, or Dominion Voting Machines, or the fallacy that illegals are voting. It’s getting ridiculous, the people who vote are ADULTS who can think for themselves.

If anything, you could make an argument that the system was rigged against Hillary, she got more votes than Bernie, then went onto the general and got more votes than Trump, and didn’t become president. If this was vice versa, you’d never hear the end of it from the Bernie or Trump cults online.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

We know, in 2016, thanks to the leaked emails, that there was collusion between Clinton and the DNC to back burner Sanders.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/

Does that rise to the level of "rigged"? No. But the DNC definitely put their thumb on the scale for Clinton.

In the end though, it does kind of make sense. Sanders is an Independent and only claims to be a Democrat when running for President because he knows an Independent run is a dead end.

Why would the DNC want a non-Democrat heading the party?

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago

Considering this is a discussion community it'd be good to better phrase things in the future: Bernie Bros is a pejorative that'll instantly stifle a lot of discussion. It's hard for me to think of why you'd use such loaded terminology outside to making a bad faith post or extreme ignorance.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

I remember the Hilary PUMA voters protesting Obama’s victory in 2008, but I don’t remember them saying it was rigged.

Because for whatever reason Obama refused to seat his own DNC head, so the neoli erals maintained a death grip on the DNC.

It's still too early for Ken Martin to say which way he'll go, but at best the neoliberals just lost control of the party.

So that's why they didn't complain, Obama let them keep control of the party.

And that's why the left kept saying it was rigged, because it was.

Any other questions?

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Always keep some clarity on the fact that when people online talk about RiGgEd eLeCtIoNs, there are two angles they can be coming from:

One, is the idea that the vote counts are not to be trusted, because of the illegals voting / machines / ballot box stuffing /etc. This is, in large part, simple misinformation. We went through a period of time in the 2000's when a lot of the electronic voting machines were suspect. But thanks to the work of a lot of independent researchers (and some legitimate improvements by the voting machine companies), the whole process is more transparent and trustworthy. In particular, today's machines leave a documented paper trail and are more auditable. We never hear about Jews in Palm Beach accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan anymore.

But second, is the idea that the primaries are undemocratic, and dont really reflect the will of the people. There's some truth to that. Primaries give the veneer of having some popular input into the candidate selection process, while the candidates use the political tools at their disposal to tilt the game. There is only so far that can go, though. I am thoroughly convinced that Hillary expected to waltz to the nomination in 2008, when that guy it came in and stole her crown from under her. She spent her time until the next election solidifying her internal support to make sure thay didn't happen again in 2016. And in 2020, it seems like there were four or five candidates who pretended to run just to drown out Bernie, and throw their support to Biden right when it mattered. (I would have paid admission to see a Trump-Sanders Presidential race ...)

The irony is that the Republican Party's winner-take-all approach to their primaries make it a lot easier for a popular candidate to run away with the nomination. If Republicans in 2016 had done what Democrats typically do, and consolidate around the establishment candidate, then it is possible that they could have avoided nominating Trump. But as I recall, too many Republicans stayed in the race for too long, splitting the anti-Trump vote and diluting it.