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This is not the general case. This is not about some arbitrary private organization, but rather one of the two major party organizations that select candidates

This is not the general case. This is not about some arbitrary private organization, but rather one of the two major party organizations that select candidates for the general election. To review, the U.S. election system for presidents is single-winner, which game-theoretically pushes the general election toward a two-candidate race. Those two dominant candidates are selected by "private" political organizations called the DNC and RNC. Was it legal for them to do what they did? I guess so, but I'm not a lawyer much less an election law lawyer. Does a system in which the DNC can secretly (until it gets leaked) show favoritism still represent democracy of any kind? I don't think so. It's cronyism or oligarchy or something more akin to that than to representative democracy. So in the Democratic primary we had the DNC (legally, presumably) influencing primary voters to favor Hillary. In the general election, we had Russia, to some extent, influencing voters to favor Trump (or at least hate Hillary enough to stay home). Everyone goes through the roof that a small group of people from another country would influence the general election, but little to no concern domestically that a tiny group of people were influencing the Dem presidential primary results. If you would prefer the term "influence" instead of "rig" in reference to what the DNC did for Hillary vs Bernie, I understand that. But none less than the NYTimes declared (via an editorial by Krugman) that Russia "rigged" the 2016 election when what they really mean is that Russia appeared to have influenced voters, which is the same as what the DNC did to Democratic Party primary voters. If the RNC secretly did the same thing, I'd be complaining about them too, but there's a lack of evidence that they did, and even if they tried, it wasn't successful. As you pointed out, there were some public efforts to bias (against Trump), but they were too incompetent to be successful. The RNC and DNC are organizations intended to help their parties' voters pick among several primary candidates. If the organizations' leadership is not neutral (or doesn't try hard to be neutral) but pretends to be, primary voters risk being seriously misled. As I said before, the whole notion that such a system has anything to do with democracy is a sham. So this past election was a sham candidate vs an awful candidate who was at least honestly selected by general party sentiment.

ceejayoz 9y ago
> Does a system in which the DNC can secretly (until it gets leaked) show favoritism still represent democracy of any kind? Sure. They're ultimately tasked with winning elections. If a neo-Nazi ran for the party's presidential ticket, I don't think anyone would question their right to oppose that. Sanders was no neo-Nazi (clearly!), but I'm not shocked the Democratic Party leadership flinched internally at the prospect of a non-Democrat jumping into the race and affecting the chances of the most viable candidate in the general election. > If the RNC did the same thing I'd be complaining about them too, but they didn't in this last election. They absolutely did the same thing. I have 100% certainty that a leak of the RNC's emails would show similar internal efforts to prevent a Trump candidacy. > The RNC and DNC are organizations intended to help their parties' voters pick among several primary candidates. That they failed at it doesn't change the fact that they publicly expressed the preferences you're aghast at the Democrats expressing internally. That's one of their responsibilities. They also have, per their bylaws, responsibilities to win elections for the benefit of their respective parties and their values.
- harshreality 9y ago
  The RNC may have done the same thing secretly, I don't know and I assume you don't know either despite your subjective 100% certainty, but it also doesn't matter because it's unproveable without a leak, and even if it happened it didn't work. The DNC collusion did happen, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that it ended up changing the primary results, given Sanders's early success. So you don't care if a small number of party leaders influence primaries for the good of "democracy" or "the party"? You think it's wrong for that information about secret DNC bias to get leaked, or it's only wrong if it's leaked by a foreign party? How do you know Putin leaked it rather than Seth Rich? What you're outlining for the role of political parties seems to be that they should strongly bias and rubber-stamp frontrunner candidates who are then rubber-stamped by primary voters who have been persuaded by bias and propaganda from the party leaders during the primary campaigns. I don't know what the word democracy means anymore if you think that conforms to its definition.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > So you don't care if a small number of party leaders influence primaries for the good of "democracy" or "the party"? Even having primaries be anything other than overtly symbolic is a relatively recent feature of the system, for both parties. The norm has long been that you vote with your membership: you join the party whose leaders you trust most to serve your interests, and then (notionally) those leaders make decisions that they expect will retain and attract members.
    - harshreality 9y ago
      There have been all sorts of undemocratic processes in history, but at present I think the vast majority of voters would agree that primaries are supposed to reflect an intra-party democracy, and the DNC leak proved that there were efforts to bias that process. Still, many of the same Democrats who rail against the electoral college for being undemocratic, or Russian propaganda for biasing (however slightly) the general election, are silent about biased/undemocratic selection of their primary candidate.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> If the RNC did the same thing I'd be complaining about them too, but they didn't in this last election. The RNC was accused of it just like the DNC, the difference is a foreign intelligence operation didn't hack and leak RNC emails. Well, that and that the RNC’s system to assure that they don’t have to get hands on in supporting the establishment candidate because of the way delegates selection is stacked to give the early leader (who the rule writers assumed would be the establishment favorite) an artificial air of supermajority support, to drive media coverage in a way which will collapse support for other candidates backfired because even with insider influence the early establishment candidates couldn't get public traction, leaving Trump to reap the benefits designed to go to the establishment candidate.)
learc83 9y ago
> But none less than the NYTimes declared that Russia "rigged" the 2016 election Can you point me to this article? I'm fairly certain I don't remember them saying the election was "rigged".
- harshreality 9y ago
  Sorry, it wasn't staff, but Krugman's hysterical editorial: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-election.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-ele...

ceejayoz 9y ago

> Does a system in which the DNC can secretly (until it gets leaked) show favoritism still represent democracy of any kind? Sure. They're ultimately tasked with winning elections. If a neo-Nazi ran for the party's presidential ticket, I don't think anyone would question their right to oppose that. Sanders was no neo-Nazi (clearly!), but I'm not shocked the Democratic Party leadership flinched internally at the prospect of a non-Democrat jumping into the race and affecting the chances of the most viable candidate in the general election. > If the RNC did the same thing I'd be complaining about them too, but they didn't in this last election. They absolutely did the same thing. I have 100% certainty that a leak of the RNC's emails would show similar internal efforts to prevent a Trump candidacy. > The RNC and DNC are organizations intended to help their parties' voters pick among several primary candidates. That they failed at it doesn't change the fact that they publicly expressed the preferences you're aghast at the Democrats expressing internally. That's one of their responsibilities. They also have, per their bylaws, responsibilities to win elections for the benefit of their respective parties and their values.

harshreality 9y ago
The RNC may have done the same thing secretly, I don't know and I assume you don't know either despite your subjective 100% certainty, but it also doesn't matter because it's unproveable without a leak, and even if it happened it didn't work. The DNC collusion did happen, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that it ended up changing the primary results, given Sanders's early success. So you don't care if a small number of party leaders influence primaries for the good of "democracy" or "the party"? You think it's wrong for that information about secret DNC bias to get leaked, or it's only wrong if it's leaked by a foreign party? How do you know Putin leaked it rather than Seth Rich? What you're outlining for the role of political parties seems to be that they should strongly bias and rubber-stamp frontrunner candidates who are then rubber-stamped by primary voters who have been persuaded by bias and propaganda from the party leaders during the primary campaigns. I don't know what the word democracy means anymore if you think that conforms to its definition.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > So you don't care if a small number of party leaders influence primaries for the good of "democracy" or "the party"? Even having primaries be anything other than overtly symbolic is a relatively recent feature of the system, for both parties. The norm has long been that you vote with your membership: you join the party whose leaders you trust most to serve your interests, and then (notionally) those leaders make decisions that they expect will retain and attract members.
  - harshreality 9y ago
    There have been all sorts of undemocratic processes in history, but at present I think the vast majority of voters would agree that primaries are supposed to reflect an intra-party democracy, and the DNC leak proved that there were efforts to bias that process. Still, many of the same Democrats who rail against the electoral college for being undemocratic, or Russian propaganda for biasing (however slightly) the general election, are silent about biased/undemocratic selection of their primary candidate.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> If the RNC did the same thing I'd be complaining about them too, but they didn't in this last election. The RNC was accused of it just like the DNC, the difference is a foreign intelligence operation didn't hack and leak RNC emails. Well, that and that the RNC’s system to assure that they don’t have to get hands on in supporting the establishment candidate because of the way delegates selection is stacked to give the early leader (who the rule writers assumed would be the establishment favorite) an artificial air of supermajority support, to drive media coverage in a way which will collapse support for other candidates backfired because even with insider influence the early establishment candidates couldn't get public traction, leaving Trump to reap the benefits designed to go to the establishment candidate.)

learc83 9y ago

> But none less than the NYTimes declared that Russia "rigged" the 2016 election Can you point me to this article? I'm fairly certain I don't remember them saying the election was "rigged".

harshreality 9y ago
Sorry, it wasn't staff, but Krugman's hysterical editorial: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-election.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-ele...