Now that most of the southern states have had their primaries or caucuses, Bernie Sanders is winning in state after state in the rest of the county. It is quite possible that he will have a majority of pledged (elected) delegates by June 7th when California votes. However, even if he has this majority, he will most likely be denied the nomination. The Superdelegates, most of whom have announced their support for Hillary Clinton, will trump the results of the primaries and caucuses. Democratic National Committee chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, said in a Feb. 11 interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that "unpledged delegates [superdelegates] exist, really, to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.” One might expect that the chair of the Democratic party would believe in grassroots democracy, but no; she feels that it is more important to protect the establishment leaders from the masses.
If this happens, if Bernie Sanders and his millions of supporters are trumped, the Democratic party will be in shambles. The Convention in July will be surrounded by demonstrators protesting their anger at having their victory turned into defeat. TV cameras will be focused on the excitement and dissension outside the convention hall. A highly disrupted convention is not a good way to launch a campaign as the Democratic Party found out in Chicago in 1968. And the dissing of Bernie's supporters will have long-term effects. Bernie has attracted an unusual number millennials who will never become Democrats after the way they were treated. And a great many long-term Democratic identifiers will become independents. This will leave a large hole in the Party demographics.
The excuse that the establishment Democrats give for supporting Hillary Clinton is that she can win. On the contrary, Bernie Sanders has a better chance of defeating Donald Trump. There is a major force motivating voters in both parties this year—they are anti-establishment. For many people the Great Recession is not over—they are still struggling to make ends meet. Their wages are, at best, stagnant. Their jobs have been shipped overseas. There is a do-nothing Congress. They feel left out; no one is listening to them. It most certainly is not a year in which establishment candidates will do well. Hillary Clinton is an establishment candidate. Furthermore, all the polls show that in a matchup between Bernie and Trump, and Hillary and Trump, Bernie defeats Trump by 6 percentage points more than Hillary. He gets more Independents than Hillary and even some Republicans.
And so, the Republican and the Democratic parties will emerge from their conventions in splintered condition. The Republicans will have nominated an embarrassment who does not support their principles, and the Democrats will have chosen the weaker of their two candidates and alienated the majority of their rank-in-file. It is too late for the Republicans to avoid their disaster, but there is plenty of time for the Democrats of avoid making their mistake. The Superdelegates are not pledged; they can change their minds at any time up until they cast their vote at the Convention. (CNN and other media outlets make the error of counting Superdelegates based on their present announced support, but that could easily change. Election night coverage of primaries and caucuses should cover only the results of the voting. The current feelings of the non-elected Superdelegates should not be added in.)
The Democratic Party could ensure that the wishes of their rank-in-file are honored at their convention by calling an emergency meeting of the Democratic National Committee to 1) replace Debbie Wasserman-Schultz with a chairperson who believes in grassroots democracy and 2) require the Superdelegates to vote for the winner of the primaries and caucuses. If that does not happen, perhaps the former Secretary of State could show statesmanship by urging her Superdelegates to vote for the winner of the primaries and caucuses.