A Feast for Crows: The Death of the American Left at the DNC

The pre-election National Convention of the US Democratic Party (Democratic National Convention 2016 - DNC) started on Monday, July 25th, in Philadelphia. The congress is taking place against the background of a major scandal: WikiLeaks has published the correspondence of members of the National Democratic Committee. As it turns out, the results of the primaries, which Hilary Clinton supposedly won, were rigged.

Collusion

Leading party functionaries agreed to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for the post of US President long before the primaries, as the correspondence shows. The Democratic leadership did everything to prevent the victory of Clinton's chief rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders. They discussed strategies for discrediting Sanders, provided financial assistance to Clinton thereby breaking their own rules, and used administrative resources to defeat Sanders.

For example, the content of the correspondence concerning the vote in Rhode Island indirectly shows evidence of voting fraud. Eric Walker, the deputy head of the National Committee of the Democratic Party on public relations, wrote in what is now the published correspondence that, according to opinion polls, Sanders was ahead with a four percent margin, so only a part of polling stations would be opened. He warned, however, that if Clinton’s figures exceeded the survey data,  Sanders’ campaign would suspect foul play. In his correspondence on this matter, the Democrat also discussed how to avoid investigation on the issues in Rhode Island and noted that "the governor is one of us.”

Hysteria

The scandal has already forced the chairman of the National Committee of the Democratic Party, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, to resign. However, she was immediately afterwards offered honorary chairmanship of Hillary Clinton’s campaign team. In an effort to draw a distraction, the Democrats have not found anything better than accusing Russia of hacking their mailboxes. Allegedly, this issue was discussed even at a super-secret meeting at the White House.

All attention on Bernie Sanders

At the Democrats’ confess on Monday, Bernie Sanders was booed by his own supporters, when he urged his followers to support Clinton. Many of his supporters have called for Bernie to withdraw his support for Hillary Clinton. They have pointed out that not only was he humiliated by the Democratic establishment, but that his supporters’ voices were ignored as well. Clinton and her VP candidate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, are well known as people closely tied to big business, banks and transnational corporations.

Sanders’ choice demonstrates that Bernie, from the very beginning, posed no real alternative to the existing state of affairs, and that the American left cannot overcome the artificial division into left and right, instead preferring to save the liberal Clinton, thereby even indirectly helping Donald Trump.

Support for Clinton  also demonstrates that gender policy, the interests of LGBT people, and the right to abortion are more important to him than working class interests and a peaceful foreign policy. After all, Sanders and Trump coincide in their anti-globalism and negative attitude towards the TTP and NAFTA which deprive Americans of working places. Increased attention has been turned to social problems. And most importantly, the thing which unites Sanders and Clinton the most is sodomite rights and defending immigrants and abortion. The left has thus shown what things are of real paramount importance to them and what is not.

The Democrats’ democracy deficit

The scandal in the Democrats’ camp shows a lack of democracy as such within the party bearing the same name. Votes have no meaning for the Democratic establishment, which includes United States President Barack Obama. They have all agreed upon this in advance.