Former DNC Chair Brazile: 2016 Primary Rigged

Former interim-DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile’s new book confirms what was already known: that the 2016 primary was rigged.

As is generally the case with informants, Brazile’s trustworthiness is questionable. After all, she was forced out at CNN after it was shown that she slipped primary debate questions in advance to the Clinton campaign – and lied about it repeatedly in public statements even after leaked emails revealed as much.

Now, Brazile is being hailed by many as a whistle-blower. In excerpts released from her new book, Brazile rightly points a lot of fingers: At Barack Obama, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and Hillary Clinton. But many revelations of the book, which were vehemently denied by Clinton World at the time, had been previously reported.

We know that Obama gutted infrastructure and funding of the DNC and funneled it to his own PAC, OFA. We know that Hillary used the DNC and their state chapters as a money-laundering scheme to avoid contribution caps and kept 99.5% of the funds for her own campaign while she hypocritically accused Bernie Sanders of neglecting state races. We know that the DNC spends a large chunk of their operating budget on the consultant class who functionally control the Democratic Party (and are currently fighting at the Reform & Unity Commission to keep the DNC budget secret from even board members). We know that the DNC has suffered their worst funding months since their 2016 loss. Brazile did reveal, though, the depth of the funding issue and their effort to seek a $2m loan.

The real bombshell of the book, however, is the deal between the DNC and the Clinton campaign: Clinton covered $10m in DNC debt in exchange for control over the DNC. It meant that the Clinton campaign had control over everything from the DNC’s finances (launder them for and funnel them to Hillary), staffing (pro-Clinton acolytes), and strategy (pro-Hillary message, debate schedule, etc). And it was made in August of 2015 – just months into her announced campaign and long before she had wrapped up the Party’s nomination.

Of course this ran directly afoul of the charter; and proves that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was lying when she repeatedly claimed the DNC played no favorites in the primary. More importantly, it proved, again, what we knew to be true: that the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary was rigged.

Bernie Sanders was the transgressed party to whom Brazile felt compelled to tearily apologize over the phone call described her book. And otherwise competent candidates such as Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden stayed out of the race because – while the details weren’t public - it was common knowledge that Hillary was Obama’s hand-picked successor and the DNC was set up with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (Hillary’s 2008 campaign manager) at the helm to make it happen. But, in the end, it’s the American public – and in actuality the entire world – who is owed a sincere apology by all corporate Democrats over the debacle that gave us President Donald Trump.

Wasserman-Schultz’ attempts to limit the debates and schedule them head-to-head with NFL games were a blatant attempt to keep Bernie’s progressive message away from as many eyes as possible. Structurally, the primary schedule of initially going to small and southern states gives an advantage, especially in the media narrative, to conservative candidates. Super delegates were created in response to a surprising progressive primary victory and remain in place to keep it from happening again. Many state chapters of the DNC shun new, independent voters by forcing them to register as Democrats long before knowing who the candidates might be; and hold caucuses which poor people cannot easily attend. They purged their own voters from large cities such as Brooklyn (Bernie’s home town). And exit polls – which matched up just fine with results in Republican primary races – were so vastly differing from final vote counts that the Democratic Party presidential primary election would not stand up to international standards and scrutiny.

Corporate media’s allergy to the progressive agenda compelled them to snicker and scoff at Bernie and his progressive policy proposals; and to report the super delegates’ votes as cast in favor of Clinton when they wouldn’t be until months later.

It is a sickness shared by the Clinton World, who framed the entire left as a bunch of racist, sexist bros; and who hijacked the Democratic Party and sold its soul to the white collar business class in exchange for legalized bribes in the form of campaign cash which was supposed to propel them to victory. That is the reason the Democratic Party marches to the drum beat of Wall Street, Sillicon Valley, Big Pharma, the military industrial complex, et al. That is the reason they stand in direct opposition to the working poor and the progressive agenda. That is the reason people don’t want to donate to, vote for, or identify as a Democrat. And that is the reason we have President Donald Trump.