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If that bias leads to action, as shown in [0] of my earlier post, then isn't that corruption? EDIT: punctuation correction.

shadowgovt 4y ago
Corruption is something a government can have; what does it mean for a party to be corrupt? If people think it means the party doesn't reflect the will of the voters... Not exactly. That's always been the structure of the Democratic party. Popular will is tempered by party leadership. That's baked into the structure of the Democratic party itself. The party that lacks that kind of tempering is the GOP, and as a result it tends to run populists who may or may not actually have any government qualification (one won the Presidency in 2016; a couple have won state governorship over the years). The resulting apologies and resignations were an attempt to reconcile with voters who, fundamentally, did not understand how the party they support actually works. No shame in that; it's a big and complex machine. But it's never been a machine that just reflects the unmodified will of the people who toss ballots into the box with a 'D' next to their name in the primaries. That's one source of signal the party uses to decide who it will run. To give another example: in 2008, in response to the Florida party leadership running their primary earlier than the national committee authorized them to run it, the committee stripped all the Florida delegates of their vote in the national convention (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Florida_Democratic_presidential_primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Florida_Democratic_presid...). Then, it compromised (at its discretion) by seating them but only counting half of each of their votes. That is the nature of the power the democratic party national leadership has to wield at its discretion, without oversight, as per its charter. People just don't know this because people don't know the parties.
- DeWilde 4y ago
  I'm sorry, but this seems to me like you are advocating a point. of: "The peasants don't know what is good for them, the party will decide for them." This would have been fine the DNC came out and said that this is what they are doing. But the DNC has explicitly stated that is unbiased in action (in the [0] of my earlier post) and then they go and do the opposite. This is just plain corruption. If the contents of the food product you just bought are not the same as the label of the product then fines are levied against the company that sold it.
  - Retric 4y ago
    People weigh in on elections all the time. The public is still ultimately making their choice. If anything the party always staying out of primaries would be a much larger issue.
    - DeWilde 4y ago
      Yes, the people weigh on elections and they make their choice. But if they make their choice according to a party that claims honesty yet betrays that honesty with lies, isn't that an issue with the party being corrupt and the people being lied to? Thus corruption, which these leaks ultimately have shown us.
      - Retric 4y ago
        In answer to your question, no. Being truthful isn’t the goal, achieving the parities political goals is. Gerrymandering for example is a perversion of the core idea of democracy, but failing to use it when your opposition does is a problem. Politics exists in the real world and what should be often takes a back seat to what is.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    It's not an argument I'm making; it's an argument lawyers for the DNC have effectively made in a court of law defending DNC against a class-action lawsuit by voters. https://observer.com/2016/10/dnc-lawyers-argue-no-liability-neutrality-is-merely-a-promise/ https://observer.com/2016/10/dnc-lawyers-argue-no-liability-... "Courts have uniformly rejected attempts to litigate on the basis of purported political promises, including ‘statements of principle and intent in the political realm’..." The DNC can say it's unbiased, but the rules-as-written allow broad, sweeping bias in how the Democratic party conducts its affairs. It's a party. They're biased by default. The whole point of parties is, basically, as you put it, "The peasants don't know what is good for them." There's a reason so many politicians throughout history have been anti-party. Unfortunately, they stick around and grow in power because they tend to work; focused political alignment beats unfocused noise consistently. What happened with the Sanders campaign is a whole bunch of voters crashed headlong into a system that works other than the way they assume it does.
Retric 4y ago
No, the party should be acting. If party leadership cares about winning the general election for example, they should promote the person more likely to win. Party leadership could very well prefer candidate X personally, but promote candidate Y strategically. Politics goes beyond the election into actually implementing the candidates proposals, which adds yet another dimension here.

shadowgovt 4y ago

Corruption is something a government can have; what does it mean for a party to be corrupt? If people think it means the party doesn't reflect the will of the voters... Not exactly. That's always been the structure of the Democratic party. Popular will is tempered by party leadership. That's baked into the structure of the Democratic party itself. The party that lacks that kind of tempering is the GOP, and as a result it tends to run populists who may or may not actually have any government qualification (one won the Presidency in 2016; a couple have won state governorship over the years). The resulting apologies and resignations were an attempt to reconcile with voters who, fundamentally, did not understand how the party they support actually works. No shame in that; it's a big and complex machine. But it's never been a machine that just reflects the unmodified will of the people who toss ballots into the box with a 'D' next to their name in the primaries. That's one source of signal the party uses to decide who it will run. To give another example: in 2008, in response to the Florida party leadership running their primary earlier than the national committee authorized them to run it, the committee stripped all the Florida delegates of their vote in the national convention (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Florida_Democratic_presidential_primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Florida_Democratic_presid...). Then, it compromised (at its discretion) by seating them but only counting half of each of their votes. That is the nature of the power the democratic party national leadership has to wield at its discretion, without oversight, as per its charter. People just don't know this because people don't know the parties.

DeWilde 4y ago
I'm sorry, but this seems to me like you are advocating a point. of: "The peasants don't know what is good for them, the party will decide for them." This would have been fine the DNC came out and said that this is what they are doing. But the DNC has explicitly stated that is unbiased in action (in the [0] of my earlier post) and then they go and do the opposite. This is just plain corruption. If the contents of the food product you just bought are not the same as the label of the product then fines are levied against the company that sold it.
- Retric 4y ago
  People weigh in on elections all the time. The public is still ultimately making their choice. If anything the party always staying out of primaries would be a much larger issue.
  - DeWilde 4y ago
    Yes, the people weigh on elections and they make their choice. But if they make their choice according to a party that claims honesty yet betrays that honesty with lies, isn't that an issue with the party being corrupt and the people being lied to? Thus corruption, which these leaks ultimately have shown us.
    - Retric 4y ago
      In answer to your question, no. Being truthful isn’t the goal, achieving the parities political goals is. Gerrymandering for example is a perversion of the core idea of democracy, but failing to use it when your opposition does is a problem. Politics exists in the real world and what should be often takes a back seat to what is.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  It's not an argument I'm making; it's an argument lawyers for the DNC have effectively made in a court of law defending DNC against a class-action lawsuit by voters. https://observer.com/2016/10/dnc-lawyers-argue-no-liability-neutrality-is-merely-a-promise/ https://observer.com/2016/10/dnc-lawyers-argue-no-liability-... "Courts have uniformly rejected attempts to litigate on the basis of purported political promises, including ‘statements of principle and intent in the political realm’..." The DNC can say it's unbiased, but the rules-as-written allow broad, sweeping bias in how the Democratic party conducts its affairs. It's a party. They're biased by default. The whole point of parties is, basically, as you put it, "The peasants don't know what is good for them." There's a reason so many politicians throughout history have been anti-party. Unfortunately, they stick around and grow in power because they tend to work; focused political alignment beats unfocused noise consistently. What happened with the Sanders campaign is a whole bunch of voters crashed headlong into a system that works other than the way they assume it does.

Retric 4y ago

No, the party should be acting. If party leadership cares about winning the general election for example, they should promote the person more likely to win. Party leadership could very well prefer candidate X personally, but promote candidate Y strategically. Politics goes beyond the election into actually implementing the candidates proposals, which adds yet another dimension here.