Here’s Krystal Ball of “The Hill: Rising” discussing the 2020 Iowa Caucus debacle on this morning’s show:
“Well, guys, it was rigged. What can I tell you? And it’s not a conspiracy, it is a simple objective statement of fact. Let me explain what I mean, here. After waiting nearly an entire day — and endless speeches about how it’s better to be late than wrong — and a day of chastising Sanders’ supporters for doubting the fairness of a process run by people with manifest contempt for them, the Iowa Democratic Party made the absolutely inexplicable decision to release a partial set of data from the Iowa caucuses that showed 62% of the vote total…”
[The IDP made their announcement when their cherry-picked data favored the candidate who, along with the DNC, paid for the “SHADOW, INC.” app — an app owned by a secretive (shadowy) clique of Clinton-Obama operatives. With 38% of the vote uncounted and Bernie in the lead, the IDP declared Pete Buttigieg “The Winner!” (Nothing to see here, move along…) Today, they tell us “Bernie under-performed, get over it, you sore losers!” And yet they still don’t have a final count and acknowledge that Bernie got the most votes. And they’re refusing to release the raw vote totals. They’re stalling and offering opacity rather than transparency. For the first time in the history of the Iowa Caucus, the DNC has taken over the vote counting from Iowa officials. For the first time in 76 years, The Des Moines Register refused to release their pre-Caucus poll result (which showed Bernie increasing his significant lead). They did so at the request of the Buttigieg campaign. It seems that Mayor Pete knew in advance that he was going to “overcome the odds” and “win” the Caucus. The night of the Caucus, before a single result had been released, Pete gave his “victory speech.” And CNN played every minute of that speech… before a single result had been released. (Had Bernie given a victory speech at such a time, he would be mercilessly pilloried for it, with comparisons to Trump liberally tossed around.)]
Krystal Ball:
“Why? Why in the world would you take a mess of already historic proportions and make it even worse? Sewing even more mistrust into a process that was already so catastrophically laden with mistrust following the DNC efforts to anoint Hillary back in 2016?”
[And when the 2016 Iowa Caucus was rigged for Sec. Clinton, even The Des Moines Register, which had endorsed Clinton, cried foul and demanded an audit with raw vote totals… Of course, that audit never happened.]
Krystal Ball:
“Trust is something that has to be earned. And today there is absolutely no reason for any anti-establishment supporter to trust that the process will unfold fairly for them. How can you possibly look at a final Des Moines Register poll, with positive results for Bernie, that gets spiked (by the Pete campaign, by the way) followed by a Caucus in which Pete claims ‘victory’ when zero percent of the results are in, that turns into a giant debacle, due to an app developed by people with close ties to Pete, who have openly expressed contempt for Sanders? You cannot look at that whole timeline and really expect a group of people who are consistently smeared and dissed by the establishment to feel like they’re getting a fair shake. Of course, they don’t feel that way! But as if that wasn’t enough, as if they hadn’t done enough damage to any sense of trust in our basic democratic institutions (which they have clearly sold to a coalition of grifters and donors), the pièce de résistance came yesterday…
“Party officials decided to release 62% of the results at 5 PM, with absolutely zero transparency about how they picked those precincts or, you know, when we might expect to get the other 38% of the vote… EFFECTIVELY ERASING MASSIVE SWATHS OF IOWA VOTERS…”
[Yes, Ms. Ball, it’s true: The DNC and corporate media have collaborated, once again, to disappear “massive swaths” of voters — disproportionately people of color and women, who are the majority in Sanders’ movement (exit polls from Iowa show that Bernie won with an impressive 43% of the non-white vote, far ahead of his nearest competitor in that category). The DNC and corporate media have collaborated, once again, to disappear progressives, because Iowa exit polls also showed that ~60% of voters want Medicare-for-All, a healthcare plan that Pete Buttigieg has rejected, using industry talking points. Like Bernie, those voters just got cheated and robbed.
When Republicans intentionally disenfranchise millions of people of color, establishment Democrats feign outrage, but when their own party systematically erases the votes of millions, disproportionately women and people of color, these blithe partisans just close their eyes, plug their ears, and shout, “Oh, you bullying “bros” with your wacky conspiracy theories!” Sure, who cares that most of us “bros” are women and people of color? These affluent liberals of the “I’ve got mine!” class feel morally compelled to crush the most vulnerable Americans and our movement, in order to defend the honor of wealthy, warmongering, racist, primary-rigging, deeply corrupt Wall Street-Democrats. God knows why.]