I joined the Washington for Bernie group in May, not too soon after Bernie announced his intention to run for President of the United States. I would consider myself to be a rabid progressive; I believe in the values that Bernie does, I believe that he has the best vision for America out of all of the candidates, and I believe that he has been invaluable in steering the discourse of the Democratic primary. I believe in all of the core principals of Bernie’s campaign, I believe in his vision for a fairer and more equitable America, I believe that he has the greatest passion out of all the candidates act selflessly.
I’m young, 22, and my perception of Hillary Clinton was developed in the 2007-2008 Democratic primaries and her tenure as Secretary of State. To me, and many of my peers, Clinton is a vestige of the 1990s and 2000s – not for 2016. I don’t believe she best represents my and my generation’s vision of America, and I see her campaign pandering to us instead of talking to us like adults. Bernie, on the other hand, sees that our generation’s priorities are serious, and that it goes beyond reaching out to us on Snapchat or Tumblr.
However, I don't believe there is a mass conspiracy by the “corporate elite” to systematically undermine and destroy Bernie’s grassroots campaign. No, I don’t believe there is somehow some plot by mainstream media to purposefully ignore Bernie’s campaign and favor Clinton’s. No, I don’t believe that Clinton is literally a puppet of Wall Street financiers and she’s running a phony campaign.
I do believe that the Democratic National Committee has participated in some tactics that make it harder for opponents of Hillary Clinton to gain space and challenge her, and I find some of their decisions to be extremely questionable (a debate on the Saturday night before Christmas? C’mon).
I don’t think, though, that the DNC is a conspiratorially-minded organization that is attempting at every turn to undermine the Sanders campaign.
This all, apparently, has put me at odds with a very vocal and influential minority in organizing groups and other Bernie supporters at large.
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In just the last 24 hours, many have taken wacko ideas on the database controversy:
• ABC is controlled exclusively by the 1% and therefore, as a corporate media entity, is actively participating in pivoting its coverage of the campaign to deliberately favor Hillary Clinton.
This is apparently proven by coverage on their website. While, yes, it has been proven that there is a lack of coverage of the Sanders campaign from major media outlets, I think that importance is being blown out of proportion. I don’t think that proves any invisible hand of the corporate media, though.
Clinton’s email controversy is going to be more interesting because it’s gossipy; Trump is gaining headlines for very obvious reasons. Frankly, the Sanders campaign isn’t exactly interesting for news outlets to report on when there are easy, sensational stories laying at their feet.
Also, it doesn’t matter. Social media and alternative media outlets dominate how people (especially Millennials and younger) get their news and information. We all know that on those platforms, Sanders reigns king. I don't know a single person under 30 who relies heavily on traditional outlets to get their information.
• Local organizers should actively try to keep data off of Votebuilder and other Democratic Party databases so that way the DNC won’t try to sabotage the Sanders campaign in the future.
Uh, yeah, good luck. So now Bernie is going to leave the Democratic Party’s databases, build his own, and rely off of those because there’s a conspiratorial belief that the DNC will seek to sabotage the Sanders campaign again?
• That the DNC and the Clinton campaign will drum up fake accusations against the Sanders campaign and shut down voter databases when Bernie pulls ahead of Clinton in polls.
A Democratic Party “false flag” operation to bring down Sanders sounds like something right out of InfoWars. Come on.
• The CEO of NPV VAN (the vendor who designed the voter database) is involved in a conspiracy where he has purchased software from Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s nephew in the past and that somehow proves a connection where he would want to bow to Wasserman Shultz’s demands to shutdown the Sanders campaign access to the voter database.
You’re telling me that the Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee had some personal connections with the CEO of the company that has a monopoly over Democratic data management that may have developed through their professional relationship? What a surprise!
Yeah, no, I’m gonna need more than that to believe that there’s nefarious intent here due to all of these obscure connections. What’s embarrassing is that I’ve seen post after post and various charts that explain how this conspiracy is worth considering to be true.
• The DNC capitulated on access to the database following the lawsuit because they were afraid of an investigation that would prove systemic corruption benefiting Clinton and her campaign.
There’s no winning. OK, the DNC concedes, restores access, tacitly admits that it may have made a rash decision. But wait! That still proves there’s further conspiracy about and there must have been something deeper that would’ve influenced their decision.
Let’s get things straight:
The fight is over a real incident. Sanders staffers took advantage of a data breach to access some of Clinton’s proprietary voter information, according to an audit that became public Friday. The consensus from reviews of the audit is that the staffers did attempt to benefit from Clinton's information, but they didn't pull it off. They made lists of voters, but didn't take the step of downloading the data.
The Sanders campaign fired a staffer and has launched an internal investigation.
Had Clinton done this to Sanders, you better believe there would be a thirst for blood from Bernie supporters. They would demand she drop out of the race, they would claim that this is proof that she’s running a campaign designed to unfairly disadvantage Sanders, and there would be calls for a deep investigation to see how widespread or how long such a breach occurred. There would be demands from the DNC to institute harsh punishments on the Clinton campaign and many would liken the trickery to her email controversy. Could you imagine?
I do think that immediate suspension from voter databases is harsh and that there is undue scrutiny paid to the Sanders campaign instead of the NPV VAN, but I don’t think their steps were entirely unreasonable; perhaps reactionary.
Rhetoric like this isn’t going to build our party, which has suffered extremely severe losses in the last five years. Bernie’s campaign isn’t a “revolution”, it isn’t something that is going to upend the establishment and cause chaos in the status quo – remember the Presidency is a surprisingly weak institution in moving political change, something President Obama has come to realize.
It’s a progressive campaign that seeks to turn the Democratic Party farther (and rightfully so) to the left and determine what the future of the Party is going to look like. Sanders is still bound to the structural problems of American politics and government – things that are far more rational and practical than silly conspiracy.