Sometimes people ask why Sanders hasn't built a progressive coalition of Democrats. Yet many have spoken of the impossibility of a campaign not funded by corporations and the wealthy (before he brought in $140 million, mostly from small donors and donations.) He did this even as he was alternately ignored, written off, and disparaged by the media, who ignored his yuuge events and soaring polls. He changed the dialogue on virtually every issue and changed Clinton's positions (at least for now) on most of them. And he is now supporting fundraising for some progressive candidates. By any standard, his accomplishments are tremendous. As Jesse Jackson (who Sanders endorsed) complained during his 1988 run for the presidency: if he walked on water, the headlines would read "Jackson can't swim!"
It's time to hold our superdelegates -- who represent 30 percent of the votes needed to win the nomination -- accountable to American voters, regardless of the favors they have been offered. Come November, many voters will ask the following questions: "Should I even vote for a Democratic Congressional representative?" "Are we aligned on the big issues (say climate, trade, guns, and our support of Bernie)?" And for president, "Do I want to vote the 'lesser of two evils' or neither?"
WHY EXCEED THE POPULAR VOTE -- ESTABLISHMENT BARRIERS, VOTING INSANITY AND HILLARY'S DECEPTION
As mentioned earlier, our expectation might be as citizens that the superdelegates' votes would mirror their states' results. But there are many reasons why the superdelegates should far exceed the popular vote. In a democracy with a functioning media and election system, Sanders would likely have established a winning margin of at least 10 to 15 points.
Media bias for Hillary -- The establishment, mainstream corporate media has been strongly pro-Hillary. One study found they gave her as much coverage as Trump last year, while Bernie was ignored with 1/23rd the coverage of either. His numbers have soared when voters learn about him, so the media's failure to cover Bernie is a major part of the reason he often loses the early vote (often before he campaigns in a state), but runs evenly or far better against Hillary on election days. (Another voting day reality has been election day coverage has deceptively and disproportionately covered early votes, likely leading many not to vote.)
But it's gone beyond that. As the media has run through the steps of Gandhi's famous quote, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win," Clinton has adopted a sophisticated, unethical media strategy. Hillary and her surrogates (with undisclosed ties) rely on the media promoting her misleading statements, changing the subject at her whim, and highlighting her successes. Her first debate "win" used at least four carefully crafted deceptive or lying answers to allow the media to declare it a "win," which gave her crucial momentum. Over time, she and supporters deceptively mischaracterized Bernie's broad movement-based campaign as being just about the banks and his health care plan as causing millions to lose insurance. She championed a minimum wage hike in New York she's never supported nationally, after husband Bill Clinton's series of patronizing statements towards a #blm protestor. She and her supporters almost continually make bizarre assertions. If the issue at hand doesn't favor her (and really almost none do), a new talking point or shallow policy announcement is all it takes to change media focus. It's important to note this bias spans the so-called liberal press, with even the Washington Post slamming Bernie at an unprecedented pace. New York Times columnists who have spent decades trying to overturn oppressive structures make snarky and misleading statements in almost every op-ed about the one politician who has done the most to advance their causes in years. While it's hard to say how significant this bias has been in determining election results, it's easy to imagine a world in which reporting was unbiased and independents could vote in primaries resulting in Sanders leading by 20-plus points. Certainly, as has been broadly acknowledged, the media's heavy coverage gave Republican front-runner Trump enormous momentum.
"Establishment" institutions failed to champion progressive priorities -- This profoundly unethical media establishment behavior has been aggravated by those of establishment institutions: colleges, "left leaning" think tanks, large nonprofits, the DNC, many Democratic politicians, and arts institutions. Together these institutions have largely failed to advocate in a substantive way for progressive priorities. This occurred as they have increasingly been funded by foreign governments, multinational corporations, and hedge fund and private equity managers.
Clinton often mocks Sanders' use of the word "establishment," e.g., her funders and allies, even while she refuses to repeat an early line in numerous speeches of his "the top 1/10th of 1 percent have almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent." The reality is her campaign was built on positions that represent the party's incredible rightward, business-friendly drift. But how does she explain the minimal science-based coverage of environmental causes of cancer, man's role in devastating climate change, unfair trade that's tied to widespread underemployment and poverty and the plummeting of our mental and physical health, even as corporations have run wild? Yes, establishment institutions have paid some attention, but in a way that ignores the role of corporate perpetrators and class, beyond touting them as valuable partners in her neoliberal world view (see Tom Frank's "Nor a Lender Be" for the subversive, deceptive way corporate partnerships are championed by the Clinton Foundation.) In fact, Bernie's campaign should never have felt revelatory or inspirational. It's only the purposeful brushing aside of our citizens' realities, even as media transfixes us with so-called reality-based entertainment, that make it so.
Some may think the media and institutional black hole have made Sanders more appealing. In actuality, it has largely worked against him as people have been more unfamiliar the basic truths of injustice and power, as well as Clinton's ties to them, when they've gone to the polls.
Voting "irregularities" and stolen and missing votes -- Large-scale electoral failures and fraud favor Clinton. There are the improbable Iowa coin flips and Bill Clinton's potential voter violation felony campaigning for his wife and causing delays in Massachusetts (which may have prevented Sanders' fifth win on Super Tuesday and a media narrative of Sanders' strength). Arizona closed many polling places (even as Sanders won the election day vote), delays were of many hours, most provisional ballots were discarded, and registrations flipped to prevent voting. Weeks later, it was more chaos: in New York, where 125,000 Brooklynites (just miles from Clinton's Brooklyn office and in Sanders' hometown) were dropped from the voting rolls in one of the few areas Clinton won. There were also more flipped registrations and exit polls that differed from polling results in an extremely unlikely manner (with odds of 1 in 123,000.) The reported votes Sanders received even decreased (?!) It's interesting she's repeatedly hit his supposed weakness in primaries. It's true when people caucus and there appears to be less fraud, Sanders is more likely to win.
Of course, even the structure seems rigged -- the lockout of independents and the requirement to change parties sometimes very early (which even prevented two Trump kids from voting) -- rules that seem designed to favor incumbents. The inclusion of parties like the American Independent Party in California also appear aimed at the same end.
Deceptive campaign -- For someone who is, along with her supporters, highly attuned to sexist behavior that results in unfair advantage, she has been shockingly deceptive. Much is amplified by the media, who willingly supports the false narratives she promotes. And while it's true she skirts the line so most of her statements aren't actual lies (see Media Bias for Hillary) they promote dishonest beliefs about both her and Sanders' records. The term gaslighting: mental abuse by employing twisted and false information is appropriate (as well as it's discussion in the link above. Hillary, this is not what democracy looks like.
The slimy strategies have extended to campaign activity and the social media: push polling for Hillary and phone calls made from Sanders' phone banks by her supporters. Hillary trolls took down most of Sanders' Facebook pages. A pro-Clinton SuperPAC is spending $1 million to attack Sanders on social media.
In summary, it becomes clear that Clinton's campaign and supporters have heavily exploited and/or benefited from a corrupt fourth estate and election rigging, as well as a widespread ignorance of progressive policies and Clinton's record. The superdelegates should take these acts into account when reviewing the votes from their states and across the nation, and making their choices.
HILLARY'S PROSPECTS BASED ON UNDERCOVERED REALITIES
But even more important are Hillary's prospects. So far the election has been remarkably clean. But once one looks at undercovered political realities, it becomes clear that Sanders is a far better Democratic candidate.
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