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“They really did screw Bernie”: Here's what 2016 can teach Democrats today
(www.motherjones.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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politics
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Where have people refused to admit that? My point was that the superdelegate system is unfair, because it gives the party favorite a huge advantage before anyone has even voted. Regardless of whether I’m for or against the party favorite, I’m against the superdelegate system.
The party insiders favored the person who has always been in the party, over someone who joined that year? Cmon man.
Bernie could have fixed this at any time, by actually joining the Democratic Party. He didn't.
Bernie lost by MILLIONS of actual votes. Not super delegates. Actual votes.
Life ain't fair. Just because it's not fair, doesn't mean people should sit at fucking home and sulk and not try and get something done instead of nothing.
I don’t care who the party insiders support, and it’s completely understandable that they supported Hillary. But that shouldn’t translate to her having an enormous lead before anyone votes. That’s not democratic. Considering the Democtratic party is named after democracy, you’d think they should be a shining example of it.
I don’t know why you keep explaining that Bernie lost by millions of votes. I understand that. You are trying to convince me of something I already believe. I am simply trying to even explain to you that my problem is with what happened before anyone voted.
Based on what you just said though, I think you don’t fully understand how delegates work in the party. The superdelegates do matter. Let’s say, based on voting, Bernie and Hillary had won the exact same number of delegates. Hillary would have won, because she had more delegates when you add the superdelegates. Now let’s say, again based solely on voting, Bernie had won 300 more delegates than Hillary. Hillary would still have won, because she had ~360 superdelegates. Therefore, Bernie would have needed to get well over 50% of the vote to actually win. That’s what we mean when we say the party screwed him.
The popular vote doesn’t really matter in the Democratic Party, because what determines who becomes the nominee is the delegate vote (similar to how Hillary won the popular vote but lost the electoral college, so didn’t win the election). Most delegates are required to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state, but the superdelegates can vote for whoever they want. They absolutely can sway a primary to their preferred candidate. ~15% of delegates are superdelegates, which means that a candidate the party insiders don’t like may need to win 66% of the popular vote to win the candidacy. That’s bad.
You're mad at a hypothetical that was nowhere near happening.
I am mad because the system in the party is set up to be unfair and undemocratic. If you think about it, you should probably be mad about that too.
I'm not mad at something that didn't happen. I certainly didn't sit at fucking home while a Nazi ran against Clinton or Harris because of this hypothetical.
Apparently, this is the desired outcome for some people on this site.
The popular vote mattered in the primary that Hillary won, but was ignored in the general that she also won but lost the EC Vote to Trump.
Rather than fight Hillary and the DNC we should have fought Trump and it's still true now.
I have voted for Trump’s opponent every opportunity I’ve had. What else do you want me to do?
Promote them, stop speaking ill of them, stop parroting the bullshit claim that the DNC magically made MILLIONS of votes appear for Hillary or Biden.
I have never made that claim. Are you just arguing with some imaginary person here? I can leave you to it, if you want to continue.
Look at the post you're under. The claim that Bernie was cheated is rampant and you're down in the comments arguing with people who have hard irrefutable numbers showing he lost by such a large margin that superdelegates could never have played any part in it. Your intentions are clear.
Have you read any of my comments? This entire time, I’ve made it incredibly clear that I’m talking about delegates. You’re either not very good at reading or you’re purposefully misunderstanding me.
Let me lay it out again, nice and slow. Delegates are the only votes that actually count toward deciding the nominee. It is indisputable that Hillary had a huge lead over Sanders in delegates before anyone voted in the primaries. Look it up.
California is roughly 10% of the electoral college. Imagine, if you will, if California just went to whoever the elite liked in the general election, regardless of any votes. That would be unfair, yes? That’s not even as bad as the 15% share of superdelegates in the DNC.
Did California go to whoever the elites like? No, it went to the most popular candidate in that state: Hillary Clinton, so stop spreading your bullshit.
The superdelegates went to who the elite liked, yes. That would be Hillary.
Hillary Clinton won 53% popular vote in the 2026 DNC Primary for California.
I just can’t anymore. You’ve got to be a troll. No one is this dense.