Oh, Team Bernie

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

Two things I read late yesterday:

1. In a New York Times piece about Bernie Sanders laying off campaign workers:

"If we can win the largest state in this country, that will send a real message to the American people," Mr. Sanders said, "and to the delegates that this is a campaign that is moving in the direction it should."

It's pretty cool how winning California (which he likely won't do anyway) should "send a real message," but Hillary Clinton being 300+ ahead in pledged delegates and having earned 3,167,708 more votes apparently shouldn't send any kind of message. Noted.

2. Jane Sanders meanwhile headed over to Fox Business Channel (perfect) to gripe about how unfair the Democratic nominating process is and agree with Donald Trump:

In an interview with Fox Business on Thursday, Jane Sanders conceded that [Trump] had a point when he said Wednesday that the Vermont senator "has been very effective" against Hillary Clinton but has also "been treated very badly by the Democrats and by the Democratic Party."

..."Now, Donald Trump has a point. The electoral process, the way it's conducted now, in both parties, is not good," she told Fox Business' Neil Cavuto. "It's not Democratic. It's not smart."

She argued that there should be more open primaries to allow independents to vote and same-day registration to boost voter participation. The Democratic primary "would be very different" if more independents could vote, she said.

..."It doesn't seem fair that superdelegates can play such an outsized role. We learned in a democracy it's one person one vote — evidently not in the primary system," Jane Sanders said, likening superdelegates to "an insurance policy for the establishment that they can [use to] make sure that the primary doesn't go awry."

YES THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPERDELEGATES ARE. And, by the way, if Bernie Sanders were winning, the superdelegates would be switching their support to him, just like they did in 2008.

They're a line of last resort to prevent some wild-ass candidate who is profoundly out of alignment with the party's platform from hijacking the nomination. And the first line of defense is closed primaries. Because, yes, the Democratic primary would indeed "be very different" if independents and Republicans could weigh in on who the Democratic nominee should be.

Sanders is not profoundly out of alignment with the party's platform. That's why they let him run as a Democrat! If he were winning, the superdelegates would back him. He's not. This isn't about trying to keep him out; it's about the fact that he hasn't run the strongest campaign.

And it's not like this shit is new. It's a little bit rich for the Sanders to be complaining about how "unfair" the Democratic system is when Bernie switched to the Democratic Party explicitly to exploit that system and its attendant infrastructure.

If you didn't like the rules, there was a simple solution to that: Run as an Independent.

The reason Bernie Sanders didn't do that is because it would have been even more difficult for him to win. Every decision has been made to give him the best chance of winning, and now they're mad because he hasn't won. Well, too fucking bad. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

It's not some grand conspiracy. It's the most basic story in politics: Someone wins and someone loses. The end.