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> The DNC does not function as a popular vote You could have stopped there. The major disconnect between public perception of the political parties and actual

> The DNC does not function as a popular vote You could have stopped there. The major disconnect between public perception of the political parties and actual party function is the party ultimately nominates who it chooses. Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy, not because either party believes in the wisdom of the mob structurally. If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process (and with the nomination of Trump, it kind of showed). You claim there was illegal redirection of funds. Was it actually illegal? Or merely in apparent violation of the party's charter (which could make the party less trustworthy but is not otherwise automatically illegal)? The best I can dig up is that there is a lawsuit alleging the DNC violated campaign finance law.

elif 8y ago
It is my view of the law that if you collect money under a stated intention of nonbiased party-backing and subsequently redirect those funds to Hillary Victory Fund, fraud has been constituted. Washing transactions between 50 different organizations to subvert campaign finance laws, as you referenced, also seems like an illegal redirection of funds. (federal lawsuit) Using DNC party funds for activities such as paying ex-intelligence operatives to manufacture deliberately infactual reports seems like a multi-part illegal redirection of funds. (steele dossier)
- fixermark 8y ago
  > deliberately infactual reports You may want to spot-check your data. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-new-report-puts-michael-cohen-cell-phone-near-prague https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-new-report-puts-mi...
  - elif 8y ago
    The first two words of your link are "If true," and the report it is using four anonymous sources... Keep in mind, the company contracted to produce this report, Fusion GPS, was also paid to produce "evidence" that north korea was responsible for hacking Sony in 2014... so you may want to spot-check your evidence.
    - fixermark 8y ago
      It's international espionage. Four anonymous sources is all we're ever going to get. And the consensus appears to generally be that NK did hack Sony in 2014, so I don't know what you're on about. There are suggestions of alternatives but nothing concrete or in accordance with the known evidence.
      - jessaustin 8y ago
        Every detail of the consensus must be policed mercilessly, else the whole edifice crumble...
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy No, the modern candidate selection process in each of the major parties isn't an abstract response to theoretical concerns about what Americans would respond to, but a concrete response to real issues identified through previous nomination processes. > If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process No, it's not; the Republican Party process is designed to artificially create an insurmountable perception of momentum for the early leader because of experience about how early lead usually favors the institutional candidate, and the set of early primaries and caucuses favor, more than the country generally, the establishment faction of the party, so that this provides both the right candidate and a short competitive part of the primary with an early shift to general election campaigning. The Democratic system through 2016 (changes are planned for 2020 in response to 2016) in general design (pushing committed superdelegate counts into horserace delegate coverage hasn't historically been the norm) favors a longer competitive period and broader geographic competition but provides a safeguard against a hung convention. Each of these has failure modes—if superdelegates commit early and the media included them in horserace coverage, the Democratic system gets the same kind of artificial inevitability as the Republican system. If a celebrity candidate sucks up early attention with a large but weak field where establishment support is divided, the Republican method work against the establishment and lock in the same kind of advantage for the celebrity it is designed to for an establishment candidate. And if a well-funded establishment decides to take that fight down to the wire with whoever it has standing after the early winnowing, it can drag out into a long primary fight if the type the system is designed to avoid.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Haha the best-laid plans... Very few people would have considered Trump "the institutional candidate", although I guess the GOP conspiracy has maybe fooled us. Even fewer people would have considered all the DNC superdelegate crap to have been a broad geographic democratic competitive scenario.

elif 8y ago

It is my view of the law that if you collect money under a stated intention of nonbiased party-backing and subsequently redirect those funds to Hillary Victory Fund, fraud has been constituted. Washing transactions between 50 different organizations to subvert campaign finance laws, as you referenced, also seems like an illegal redirection of funds. (federal lawsuit) Using DNC party funds for activities such as paying ex-intelligence operatives to manufacture deliberately infactual reports seems like a multi-part illegal redirection of funds. (steele dossier)

fixermark 8y ago
> deliberately infactual reports You may want to spot-check your data. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-new-report-puts-michael-cohen-cell-phone-near-prague https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-new-report-puts-mi...
- elif 8y ago
  The first two words of your link are "If true," and the report it is using four anonymous sources... Keep in mind, the company contracted to produce this report, Fusion GPS, was also paid to produce "evidence" that north korea was responsible for hacking Sony in 2014... so you may want to spot-check your evidence.
  - fixermark 8y ago
    It's international espionage. Four anonymous sources is all we're ever going to get. And the consensus appears to generally be that NK did hack Sony in 2014, so I don't know what you're on about. There are suggestions of alternatives but nothing concrete or in accordance with the known evidence.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Every detail of the consensus must be policed mercilessly, else the whole edifice crumble...

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy No, the modern candidate selection process in each of the major parties isn't an abstract response to theoretical concerns about what Americans would respond to, but a concrete response to real issues identified through previous nomination processes. > If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process No, it's not; the Republican Party process is designed to artificially create an insurmountable perception of momentum for the early leader because of experience about how early lead usually favors the institutional candidate, and the set of early primaries and caucuses favor, more than the country generally, the establishment faction of the party, so that this provides both the right candidate and a short competitive part of the primary with an early shift to general election campaigning. The Democratic system through 2016 (changes are planned for 2020 in response to 2016) in general design (pushing committed superdelegate counts into horserace delegate coverage hasn't historically been the norm) favors a longer competitive period and broader geographic competition but provides a safeguard against a hung convention. Each of these has failure modes—if superdelegates commit early and the media included them in horserace coverage, the Democratic system gets the same kind of artificial inevitability as the Republican system. If a celebrity candidate sucks up early attention with a large but weak field where establishment support is divided, the Republican method work against the establishment and lock in the same kind of advantage for the celebrity it is designed to for an establishment candidate. And if a well-funded establishment decides to take that fight down to the wire with whoever it has standing after the early winnowing, it can drag out into a long primary fight if the type the system is designed to avoid.

jessaustin 8y ago
Haha the best-laid plans... Very few people would have considered Trump "the institutional candidate", although I guess the GOP conspiracy has maybe fooled us. Even fewer people would have considered all the DNC superdelegate crap to have been a broad geographic democratic competitive scenario.