While it is not too late for the party elites to accept Bernie Sanders's call for the DNC to "open the doors, let the people in" (see video below), events at and after the Nevada Democratic Convention suggests that these arrogant Democratic Party elites believe that the mere fact that Donald Trump portends to America's descent into fascism is enough to ensure a Democratic Party victory in November. (Recent Clinton v. Trump general election polls ominously suggest otherwise).
For the party elites, it wasn't enough that their previous rigging of the process has all but mathematically assured a Clinton nomination. As part of their arrogant zeal to ensure that Clinton received a narrow majority of Nevada's pledged delegates, they changed party rules in the middle of the process so as to erase the results of the second stage of the Nevada caucus. Even though Sanders, a life-long devotee to Dr. Martin Luther King's principles of non-violent civil disobedience, unequivocally condemned "any and all forms" of violence, an arrogant and utterly dishonest Wasserman Schultz seized the occasion to unfairly falsely allege that Bernie had failed to adequately condemn violence -- this while she and the media ignore violence directed against the Sanders campaign.
The picture that the party elites foolishly sought to erect of violent Sanders supporters stands in marked contrast to the comparative photos (at right) that were set forth in a picture tweet by Tyson Manker, a former combat marine and the national director of Veterans for Bernie. Both photos depict the presence of armed police at the front of political rallies, one in Nazi Germany and the other at the Nevada Democratic Convention. Manker wrote: "The day democracy died."
Ominous intransigence
The last thing the Democratic Party needs is a repetition of the bitter and violent confrontations that ensued in the wake of the undemocratic maneuvers that led to the Humphrey nomination.
Yet, everything we've seen suggests that today's Democratic Party elites have failed to heed the lessons of 1968.
Concerned only with preserving the status quo power structure, an intransigent Wasserman Schultz refuses to recognize the need to open up the Convention so as to at least offer the prospect of genuine democratic reforms. She has failed to understand that there is no automatic right to party unity -- especially where so many who participated in the Democratic primaries are registered as Independents. And she has failed to appreciate that the last thing the Democratic Party needs is a general election campaign marred by the media's focus on the intra-party strife that is likely to occur both inside and outside the Convention if the party elites continue to demean the very people whose votes are essential to electoral success.
Video of Sanders plea to open up the Convention follows"
Ernest A. Canning is a retired attorney, author, Vietnam Veteran (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968) and a Senior Advisor to Veterans For Bernie. He has been a member of the California state bar since 1977. In addition to a juris doctor, he has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science. Follow him on twitter: @cann4ing
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