When Hillary met Bernie

 

Sorry, Katiebird, I couldn’t resist.

Invalidation or Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

John Oliver’s recent take on the primary process was on the mark, especially the part about how Clinton can’t do anything right:

Yes, the process definitely needs to change. For one thing, we need to cut down on the incredibly undemocratic caucuses that cut out anyone who can’t stick around for hours to listen to speeches, vote, revote, line up, line up outside, etc, etc. Katiebird shared her caucus experiences with me from 2008 and 2016. 2008 sounded like a nightmare. 2016, when she voted for Bernie was much easier. But it was still very time consuming. The elderly, working people and mothers with kids ain’t got time for that.

ahem, those would be the Clinton voters.

Then there are open primaries where anyone who has a grudge against one of your party’s candidates can game them. Independents say that if open primaries didn’t exist, they wouldn’t be able to vote in a primary.

Yes. and?

I’m not saying I’m unsympathetic to independents. I was one after 2008 for 5 years. I was extremely angry with what happened in 2008. But as we all know, the parties are private entities (that use public tax dollars for their primaries and caucuses) and they aren’t beholden to us. They hardly listen to their own voters. Why should pay any attention to independents?

But the thing that drives me nuts about Oliver’s piece and Greg Sargent asking if the primary process needs to be reformed yadayadayada, is why now? Why now, guys? This process was exponentially worse in 2008. We saw it on C-Span during the rules committee hearing when reapportionment of one candidate’s pledged delegates gave the other candidate the win.

You know, no one heard a peep from these same belligerent assholes about how unfair the system was in 2008. It’s only this year when their “more deserving male” candidate is losing by a wider margin because of closed primaries that we’re all supposed to have conscioussness raising sessions to talk about the primary system clustrfuck. When WE pointed out how the assholes were definitely, undeniably and in full daylight rigging the system against Clinton in 2008, we were called “bitter knitters”.  Now, we have to be careful not to upset the fee-fees of the same bad actors.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

Atrios says nobody remembers 2008, that we are being silly, {{rolling his eyes}}.

You know, we don’t see it that way. And we’re really tired of having our votes and experiences of both of the horrible primary seasons for the Clinton voters invalidated.

Do not tell us that our experiences were unimportant.

Some of us are living with the consequences of that nasty 2008 primary season where Clinton still managed to get more of the popular vote and managed to lose the primary by the slimmest of margins. She had every right to take the fight all the way to the convention. She wasn’t harshing his mellow. HE was harshing HERS.

Do not invalidate her actions in 2008 when she tried with all her might to be recognized as being the first female candidate who had a legitimate right to the nomination and a real roll call vote.

Elections have consequences. We got the “liberal messiah” who wasn’t a liberal. And we got an very weak economic recovery and not one banker went to jail. And Clinton is stuck with an ACA that she can’t get rid of and can only tweak around the edges. Imagine how thrilled she is to take that on. And let’s not forget that there was no guarantee he was going to win in 2008. He wasn’t that far ahead in the polls, until the financial catastrophe in Sept 2008. He didn’t win the presidency in a landslide.

If there are people in the Clinton camp who are unsympathetic to the plaintive wails of the most persistent and aggressive Bernie supporters, it’s because they’ve been there before. These guys have no respect for Clinton or her voters. A Clintonista is a non-person. His or her votes are unimportant. They can be swept into the trash bin with impunity. The objections of a Clintonista doesn’t merit their attention. They are silly. The 2008 primary was so five minutes ago.

You know, that’s bullshit. We’re not having it this year. You might have come to Clinton begrudgingly this year but we aren’t going to forget any time soon. We see the sexism lurking beneath the surface of the “no one remembers 2008” crap.

Face up to it. There is still bitterness in the party over it because those guys who gamed the system in 2008 think they can still do it in 2016 and they think they can get away with it because the Clintonistas don’t count. The fact that they are wrong this year doesn’t mitigate the damage they are doing to the legitimacy of Clinton voters or the respect for the nominee that the party needs to project going into the fall.

Is that really the message we want to send to the country in the general election? Stop it.