For a look at what Donald J. Trump faces in the general election, look no further than what the DNC tried to do to Hillary rival Bernie Sanders. Thanks to Wikileaks, we now know that charges of partiality on the part of the group were absolutely grounded in fact. Not only did DNC staffers mock Sanders behind-the-scenes, they also talked about going after his religion, or lack thereof.
The leaked e-mails – almost 20,000 of them – confirm the accusations by the Sanders camp that the Democratic Party primary process was rigged from the start. Bernie never had a chance. From day one, the process was designed to ensure the nomination of “Crooked” Hillary Clinton. The primary debates and indeed the entire campaign was a mere formality.
Contrast that with the Republican primaries. Although a lot of people were not happy about the result, the establishment’s power to crush the will of the people in the Republican Party was severely curtailed. “The Donald”, like him or not, was the people’s choice for President of the United States. He successfully challenged the establishment of his party and won. His Republican opponents who tried to rig the system like Hillary did the Democrats quickly embarrassed themselves. Ironically, the Republicans held the more democratic contest and proved to be the more democratic party.
While the Clinton campaign rigged the primaries, rigging the general will not be so easy. Instead, the well-oiled Clinton machine will resort to vicious attacks in order to stop the Trump train. We’re getting a preview of them already. Should Trump take a lead in the polls, the attacks will become more desperate and more vicious. It’s the Clinton way.
Fortunately for Republicans, Trump has shown much more political acumen than Sanders. He’s a counterpuncher and he’s not going to leave any issues on the table against Hillary. If she fights dirty, he’ll be more than happy to get into the mud with her. Sanders, unfortunately, was too nice and insisted on running a completely positive campaign – a recipe for defeat against the craven Clintons. He didn’t even talk about what could have been the most potent issue of the campaign – her e-mails.
Of course, to beat Trump, Hillary will need support from the Left. Sanders supporters are now being asked to fall into line behind a candidate who shares none of their values and will use them as pawns in her road to the White House. The Tim Kaine pick is proof that Hillary isn’t even worried about appeasing them. After aping Bernie throughout the primaries, she’s moving quickly to the center and Sanders’ populist platform will be forgotten.
It’s to be expected. We’ll see if Donald will be able to fend off the attacks and defeat the Clintons. Right now, he might be the last, best hope for ending a rigged system and putting away a crooked establishment, perfectly exemplified by the corrupt Democratic National Committee.
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
The one thing you forgot to address, Mr. Wynne, is how do Trump and the head of the RNC already know what is on the leaked emails. Trump seems to be using some deals with Russia as bargaining chips for them to help him win the election, and the head of the RNC was talking specifics about some of the emails. This is a bad mark against the dems, but if the gop is playing footsie with the Russians in order to get Trump elected, the bigger black eye will be on the republican party.
Although you may believe everything you read on Wikileaks, there is no guarantee at all that some of the comments there weren’t faked to make them seem worse than they really were. Don’t be quite so gullible.
Hillary Clinton is far from the perfect candidate, but so much of the information which has driven up her negative poll numbers comes from the completely dishonest right wing noise machine.
Decades of lies, distortions and malicious claims have done damage to her reputation. There is always an assumption that there is fire where there is smoke. She was smeared by the broad attacks on Bill Clinton during his presidency, and she has fought through the flak of her own investigations, each of which produced the same result: no misconduct.
Investigations, like Benghazi, were never going to produce a finding of culpability, but like the continuous investigations into her husband, the purpose of the investigations was to produce turmoil and to keep the question of impropriety in front of the public. The GOP leadership admitted as much this year.
When investigators knew that their probes would find nothing, they went the extra mile. Trey Gowdy, a weasel posing as a South Carolina Congressman, altered CIA documents in an attempt to score points with the committee before he was caught. Interesting, that the committee concluded that there was no misconduct in the Benghazi matter, but there was. Republicans used the deaths of honorable, decent Americans to smear a politician they did not like, in an attempt to raise her negatives and to create trumped-up case against her. The committee lied to the public, misused millions of taxpayer dollars and the power of Congress in an attempt to frame a popular politician. The leadership of the committee conspired to falsify official documents. In the end, we are left with the debris of Republican lies and false charges.
The supporters of Bernie Sanders have no idea what he would have faced had he emerged as the Democratic candidate. The right wing noise machine would have thrown much raw meat to the Republican rank and file, and they would have spent millions creating a Frankenstein monster of the distinguished Vermont senator.
After watching the unspeakable depths to which the right wing would stoop to smear President Obama over the past 8 years (despicable racism, the insane unfounded stories, the predictions of the apocalypse,) we await a multi-billion dollar barrage of lies and distortions aimed at whomever leads the Democratic Party into November. Most of the charges will be total lies. The nasty aggressive dishonesty will be eventually fact-checked and found to be not true. The charges will raise fears among the electorate. This would have been Bernie’s fate as well. We cannot know how effective the right wing smears would have been in inspiring hatred of a socialist who is Jewish. It would have been ugly, and there is no bottom to the right-wing pit. The right wing has been responsible for the reappearance of the KKK, and the reemergence of David Duke as a Louisiana candidate for Senate, inspired by the Trump message and race riots in major cities.
Republicans are represented by a pathological liar, who will not pay his workers or contractors, who is singularly unqualified to hold any office much less the highest office in the land, who believes “Lady you’ve got a nice ass” to be a complement, who believes he can shoot people on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes, and who responded to Vietnam with a coke spoon. If Donald Trump wanted to become the world’s first trillionaire, so be it. But Trump is dangerous and ignorant. He knows not what he does, and his party doesn’t care. Republicans hate Hillary much more than they love the United States.
Democrats must do what they must to prevent a petty fascist dictator from leading nation into the pit of infamy. Republicans are goose-stepping on the graves of our Founding Fathers.
Testify!! Well said.
Just read Capeheart’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post for a considerably more reasonable take on this situation than presented by Wynne and almost all comments here.
I am totally ashamed of the DNC and Hillary, It is inappropriate to throw Debbie Wasserman Shultz under the bus and act as that makes up for stealing the election. Hillary should withdraw, apologize, and ask her delegates and supporters to instead support Bernie Sanders. I have too often witnessed dishonest and illegal activities by the Democratic party to tolerate this acknowledgement of dishonesty and manipulation coupled by the arrogance of telling us to accept this disgraceful behavior. I do not accept this and will not vote for Hillary and may change my party affiliation with a more honorable party if the Democrats continue to support dishonesty and corporate criminals.
We’re talking about a Clinton. It’s what they do.
Wow. I hate to see you get the vapors and clutch your pearls, John! Whew. Do you think that Trump is some paragon of virtue? Democrats in general can’t hold a candle to Republicans when it comes to nasty, dirty, mean-spirited shenanigans. As if you care about Bernie Sanders. I’d hate to see what you would have said about him if he’d won the nomination.
You’re absolutely correct. She should step aside in favor of an electable Democrat. If she fails to do so she will have failed the country at a desperate hour. Trump is the Manchurian candidate and it ain’t fiction.
Tu quoque much?
A BLACK EYE for the DNC and I am a strong Democrat. I hate to used the worn out term “rigged,” but I can’t think of a more descriptive one. Both parties are committing political suicide by these shenanigans which are no better than the smoke-filled rooms of yore. Democracy be damned!
Mr. Wynne, I think you meant the opposite of what you wrote when you wrote: “Thanks to Wikileaks, we now know that charges of impartiality on the part of the group were absolutely grounded in fact.” The opposite is true. The leaked e-mails show strong partiality in favor of Clinton, not impartiality.
Thank you, corrected!