It's Their Party and They'll Cry If They Want To

They don't call it the Big Tent for nothing. But with the clowder of pedigreed fat cats straining its gilded threads to bursting from within, and the hordes of Bernie Bros of all genders clamoring from without, is it any wonder that the hosts of the Democratic Party are in full-fledged panic mode?

It's such an epidemic of paranoia, it's impossible to call out all the elite victims by name. It would also be unfairly piling on - because do they really need my or anyone else's help to point out how morally diseased they are? They're doing a fine job all by themselves.

Every time they open their mouths, aggrieved Hillary Clinton-fashion, and utter such rote complaints as "Bernie is getting away with murder and there's nobody to stop him!" or "Bernie is Trump!" the more people are finally kicking the habit of skulking like pitiful strays around the Big Gilded Tent, and the more they begin to flee to Bernieville. The hungry and the desperate have been hanging around the gentry gates for far too long, waiting for the occasional pat on the head or the random rancid leftover. They're finally giving up in disgust.

The Gilded Tent dwellers are noticing. And they are very, very offended. But rather than try and entice the downtrodden back with more wholesome and  egalitarian offerings, they're kicking them in the ribs with renewed abandon and wondering why they're so damned ungrateful for this attention. 

The Democratic Party elites think all they really need is a more effective abuser-in-chief candidate with which to herd a nation full of starving cats as they themselves continue to recline on their cushions of luxury.

The abuse is continuing with renewed gusto, evidenced by the Democratic Party's 2020  committee lists of party invitees, gatekeepers and bouncers. Jonathan Swift himself could not have come up with a more hilarious satire, using some of the most reviled names in the history of the modern American oligarchy. Journalist Kevin Gosztola has the rundown of the names here.

We should probably take a little solace from the fact that, unlike in 2016, the party bosses are more open and honest about their pre-rigging of the nominating process and openly boasting that the Party of the People is ruled by wealth and corporate power brokers. They're offering us a jumbo tainted can of Nine Lives and kicking us in the ribs with their diamond-toed jackboots even as they serve it. They really don't care whether we stick around to get sickened and abused. They don't even seem to care whether their faux-nemesis, Donald Trump, gets another term. His continued presence would only continue to enrich them, personally.

To that end, they are engaging in the sham impeachment trial over in the Senate in a passive-aggressive attempt to elicit public sympathy for their corrupt front-runner, Joe Biden. I say passive-aggressive, because they are also effectively throwing him under the bus by making impeachment all about his son Hunter's lucrative gig at Burisma, the Ukraine gas company, at the same time that Biden was running Ukraine foreign policy. Monday's testimony, in fact, was one long Republican attack ad against Biden in particular and the Democrats in general. 

You know you're in trouble when neocon villain John Bolton is designated the Democratic Party's latest action hero.The New York Times actually frames his tell-all book as "Bolton Has the Goods." It's reached the point where we should be happy if one of the world's most notorious war-mongering bad guys makes another bad guy look worse.

Mr. Bolton, a hard-line conservative with decades of service in Republican administrations, is no anti-Trump zealot, which makes his allegations against the president that much more devastating. And his decision to tell these stories publicly nearly certainly waives any claims of executive privilege Mr. Trump might try to assert over their communications.

Translation: Bolton is no pink pussy hat, so you gotta believe him.

 Pick a side, any side. Heads they win, tails you lose.

In a sane, just world, Bernie Sanders would win the presidential nomination. But since it is not a sane, just world, look for worse Democratic Party machinations in the coming months, with the paranoid punditry enhanced by primary voter registration purges as the electoral season enters its final stages.

Then steel yourselves for a contested convention, regardless of the delegate count and regardless of Bernie's national popularity.

When a physically and mentally ailing FDR was running for the fourth time in 1944, it was widely acknowledged that he would not outlive his term. The vice presidency thus became the crux of the contest. Democratic machine bosses didn't want the progressive incumbent, Henry A. Wallace, to be the successor. The popular Wallace that July was polling at more than 60 percent nationally while the elite machine choice, Harry Truman, was at a dismal nine percent. 

As Wallace's biographers John Culver and John Hyde recount in their book American Dreamer, just as he was about to be renominated by raucous acclaim at the Chicago convention, Boss Bob Hannegan ordered his minions to fling open the doors, allowing hundreds of people into the already packed arena. A city worker was dispatched with an ax in order to cut power cables. if necessary. Liberal Florida Senator Claude Pepper had his own microphone cut off and path blocked just as he was about to take the stage and formally place Wallace's name in nomination.

The convention was abruptly ordered adjourned on grounds of the fire hazard which the bosses themselves had deliberately created by overcrowding the building. From American Dreamer:

Overnight the bosses worked feverishly to secure Truman's nomination. Ambassadorships were offered. Postmaster positions were handed out. Cold cash exchanged hands... (On the following night when the convention reopened) Chicago policemen strictly limited admission to the stadium. Thousands of Wallace supporters were denied entrance and those who made it were scattered hither and yon.... 'Some of them were so far apart they had to signal each other with flashlights,' said a radio newsman. Large portions of the galleries were left altogether empty."

After nine grueling hours and a procession of "favorite son" nominations, Wallace won by a too-slim hundred or so votes on the first ballot. But during the second ballot, as was foreordained, delegates began falling like dominoes in favor of Truman.

Look for a similar scenario in Milwaukee this summer. Since technology has advanced far beyond hand-held axes to cut off electricity, we might look for a mysterious computer crash to impede the voting. Or maybe a terror threat will adjourn the proceedings until they can reconvene for sausage making in a closed room in the interests of public safety and "national security."  The bribery and backroom dealings will still be at their usual retrograde levels, as will the massive police presence.

The stacking of the 2020 Democratic Party leadership with oligarchs and lobbyists and warmongers and centrist think tankers (and a few token pro-business union bosses) is only the beginning. Now, as in 1944, a brokered convention looks all but inevitable. Bernie Sanders could win, or appear to be winning, on a first ballot and still be denied the nomination on the superdelegate-heavy second. The bribery as well as the nominating committee is already a done deal.

So forewarned is forearmed. This is going to be very, very ugly.

Maybe DNC Chair Tom Perez can enhance the mood and score another coup for the McCarthyite Democrats by getting John Bolton a prime-time speaking spot at the convention. It would be a great way to boost the party's neoconservative war-happy cred and swell its coffers with even more weapons and oil industry support. Since the tainted cat food of the past four transpartisan decades of neoliberal austerity doesn't attract stray voters any more, the bosses might as well add the seductive stench of blood to their mass-marketing of fear.