If you’re following the DNC Fraud Lawsuit closely then you might, from time to time, feel like Debbie Wasserman Schultz cheated Bernie Sanders. And she did. In numerous ways, as the chair of the party, she is in fact the person most responsible for the way the DNC mishandled the primary, which led directly to the election to Donald Trump.
I share that anger, and I feel the passion behind it.
But it saddens me to see personal animus focused on Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see her answer for herself, but this is not a “bad apple” situation. As a personality politics narrative emerges, we have to be careful not to open the door to quick fix that allows the real problem—corruption—to continue to fester.
I believe the DNC Fraud Lawsuit reaches for justice beyond punishing individuals. It provides the means to address the corrupt system that produces and sustains folks like DWS.
This isn’t about a single bad apple. It’s about a broken, corrupt system.
When you read the transcript of the recent hearing, you find the judge is interested in more than the simple idea of fraud. He wants the attorneys to respond to more lofty matters, like Democracy and fairness. That’s because the Southern District of the Federal Court where judge William Zloch presides, is not Judge Judy’s courtroom. The Federal Court often takes broader public interest into account when considering the law.
If we sought a political remedy, rather than a legal one, we’d be focusing entirely on personalities. We have clear that mindset when discussing a legal case. The end result of a legal case shouldn’t be hand the establishment a bad apple in the form of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and/or Donna Brazile. That’s too easy. It would provide license to toss them out, wipe their hands clean, and continue on as if nothing happened.
One of the great things about a stable Democracy is that we get to have our revolutions in court, rather than in the streets. That’s the ideal. The people who are watching this case closely know this. For all the chaos happening on the entire rest of the political spectrum, this case has the potential to create some real positive change.
We can’t continue allowing corruption to rule the political process. The least among us, like the figures swept up in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit, always thrive in corrupt systems. They don’t mind playing dirty as long as they win. Meanwhile, honest public servants are pushed to the sidelines. It’s really no different than middle school.
It’s not the people themselves who have made this system untenable. The problem lies in the rules of game and the money involved in elections and the policy-making process.
A long time ago, when Wasserman Schultz first entered politics she was likely an idealistic Democrat campaigning for all the right reasons. But something happens once folks find themselves smack in the middle of a corrupt system. If they want to survive, they develop strategies to navigate the corruption around them. Some find the best way to do that is to get “one step ahead” of the corruption by playing the game better. Dirtier. And they do it by telling themselves that every backroom deal is for the greater good.
Without fixing the problem of corruption we can recruit and elect the best people ever to walk this earth, and they will either find themselves on the back bench, or caught up in the dirty machinations surrounding them.
The DNC Fraud Lawsuit isn’t about a few bad apples. Putting the onus on figures like Wasserman Schultz won’t fix our problem.
Oh yes, they deserve their comeuppance, and will get it if this goes to trial. But we have to keep our eyes on the ball and make sure that when the media does start paying attention to this story that they don’t play the “bad apple” card. Pushing a few corrupt politicians out of Washington would be the worst of all possible outcomes.
Now is the time to reset the system so that our kids and grandkids inherit a Democracy that’s worth fighting for.
The Florida Squeeze 
One major improvement would be to eliminate the “Superdelegates.” In round numbers Hillary had 500 of the 510 Superdelegates pledged to her before the contest even started. All Hillary had to do was round up 1800 elected delegates while any other “unchosen” candidate would need 2,300 elected delegates.
Another more tricky problem was that mixed in Hillary’s elected delegates were a whole bunch of deep south delegates despite the major probability that Hillary would ever receive any electoral votes from those states.
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Ms. Hines, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is representative of the process you describe as in need of reform. The system is broken…and is controlled by the very people and special interest groups that broke it. Interestingly, those people and special interests place the judiciary…the judges that hear the complaints of injustice brought by the people, and in doing so claim to protect the people. A reset, in your estimate, would begin where? How, and monitored by whom? The lawyers for the DNC have established indifference to voters and suggested that the party is superior and cannot be rebuked. A finding for the plaintiff in this class action is crucial to the reset that you support as necessary. Personal animus for Debbie Wasserman Schultz…well, when treating a pilonidal cyst, a manicure is useless.
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Federal judges are not placed by special interests. They are appointed by the President and may serve for life, which like tenure, is a hedge against influence.
A reset is simply re-affirming a commitment to the honest operation of the political process in general, and the primary process specifically. Time to reel in the mission creep…or alternatively, the creeps’ ability to bend the mission dishonestly.
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Amen, thank you Brook.
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The DNC needs to clean house and oust all the underhanded Wasserman types, AND choose those who will step up to what progressives want; make sure the caucuses are honest, or it will be another fiasco in 2018 and 2020. Those of us who are boomers and older must realize that it is the younger generations, x and millennial, that are now the majority voters in this country. They dissed the whole Democratic party for a number of reasons this last election, particularly because of how Wasserman and her lackeys treated Bernie. (I know the GOP had a hand in that too, but it was their own DNC party’s dishonesty that shouted the loudest fuk you to the voters)
The DNC leaders fudged around until they got what THEY wanted, but NOT what the majority progressive voters wanted, and they ended up backing the wrong horse. Yes HRC was a whole lot better than DT, but the young folks saw the underhandedness levied at Sanders as a discordant slap in the face – and they rejected the whole party because of it. If we want to make any headway through the morass the GOP has now created, we had better swallow our elder, “We know better” “stay with the party no matter what” attitudes and find some middle ground with these young people. Educate them with honest moves. Make them know their voice is heard and respected by the responses to it, because they now know the power of their vote – even if it was a pissed off vote for DT.
Sure, Sanders may not have beat Trump either because of all the illegal crap that went on, but if the DNC had stayed fast to respecting their constituency it would be on much more solid ground today. AND the last congressional votes may have tipped the other direction.
Getting rid of the Super Delegates would be a good start. Keeping them says loud and clear that nobody’s but their vote counts with the DNC. That kind of favoritism will kill the hoped for vote of the next generations.
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Very well said.
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I certainly agree that the DNC Lawsuit has a far more reaching effect on the system than simply proving DWS’s corruption. However, she deserves to be deposed in order to prove the lies and deceit she pedaled. As long as she remains in Congress she will continue to wield the power of the purse she received as DNC chair. When the people of her district, of which I am one, finally realize that Debbie is more arrogant than sweet and toss her out of office, that is when justice will be served.
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Yes, I completely agree that she’s past her “due date” in Congress. That’s 100 percent right.
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The DNC should ble forced to develop a charter that is a legally binding one. Deciding as you go along what words mean is, actually, a democrat way of doing all their business, and allows the undermining of democracy as we have witnessed. I don’t especially like Bernie, but he deserved to be treated fairly. Just forgetting what the DNC did, and especially Wassermam-Shultz and Brazille, is definitely not fair, nor appropriate. Neither of the two women should ever be allowed to be any sort of manager or political representative again!
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