Democratic Primaries

Safeguards against oppression of a minority are required where government action, or mob action, is concerned. It is instructive to realize that, when you read comments urging protection of minorities in the debates around adoption of our Constitution, the minorities referred to were not the smaller racial or ethnic groups we expect the term to indicate today, but large property holders and creditors, who necessarily are outnumbered in any society, for it was an abiding fear of the gentlemen who put our system together that the franchise would be employed to cancel debts and perhaps even redistribute land and goods.

But in a convention, or the arrangements of any private body (which our political parties all are), neither life, limb, nor property is at stake for anyone. Majority rule is absolute. If a majority of delegates votes a motion, whether a platform plank or a rule of procedure or a nomination, that decision is absolute, and there is no recourse from it. The majority of delegates may choose to indulge a minority faction, but it is under no obligation to do so. Whether the majority chooses to indulge the minority is its decision, and how the minority chooses to behave is the sole means it has to influence that decision. Minorities which threaten, and engage in blackmail, tend to be smacked down and ought to be smacked down. What you refer to as 'minorities' in the racial or ethnic sense are, within the Democratic Party, solid constituents of the majority coalition at any convention, and welcomed and cherished as such because they can be relied on by the Party to vote for its candidates.

What you are inclined to dub 'progressives', by which to all appearances you mean people still devoted to 'Bernie' Sanders, not only have not earned such a place in the majority coalition of the Party, but can even be often heard disclaiming any particular desire to join the Party's majority coalition, except perhaps on terms the majority coalition could never accept. The 'progressive' faction you seem to back did, in re-writing of rules for future procedures after the 2016 convention, insisted on, and was granted, a major change in selection of 'super-delegates' which was bitterly opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus, and many African American officials of the Party at all levels. These were overruled, and that was done in the interests of buying the loyalty of the 'progressive' faction by adopting the measure.

And what do we see this year?

We see the exact same assault on the Democratic Party, under the leadership of the exact same figure who demanded that change in the rules, and we see the exact same threats by supporters of that figure to do whatever harm they can to the Party's electoral prospects this November. One of the older definitions of an honest politician is a fellow who stays bought, and it would seem Sanders and his followers cannot even meet this minimal definition of good faith. Sanders and followers seem to negotiate on the principle that 'what's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable.' People like that cannot be counted on to stick to a bargain, but must be relied to always try and noodge a bit more, and to proceed on the assumption that a threat which previously enjoyed some success will work indefinitely.

You may be sure that is not the case this year. The rank and file of the Party, the people the Party can rely on for Party work and for votes, are damned sick and tired of the posturings and threats of Sanders and his most ardent followers, and are not inclined to indulge these again.






"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."