Right now, as of 1:30 PM CST, Huffington Post's big frontpage clickbait headline is :

"Bern it down: Bernie's scorched-earth summer stunner"

Now I claim that to be clickbait for a few reasons: the use of (Drudge-like) visual pre-attentive attributes in the font and text of the headline, the use of the word 'stunner' even though no discrete event is described, and the bolding of the text font.

I know, it's so shocking to see a Clinton-biased media landscape wherein non-thrown chairs in Nevada is so 'violent' that the Democrat establishment clutches its pearls, while saying little in condemnation of violent protests at Trump rallies. [ I guess violence at Trump rallies is no big deal to Clinton, so long as it doesn't hurt her personal ambitions.]

The link being used to justify this clickbait front page of HuffPo (hardly a bastion of hard journalism, but I go there just to read headlines and see regurgitated reddit content on the sidebar) is a link to a New York magazine article. I clicked on the article and the first paragraph is immediately lambasting Sanders for not succumbing to 'math' and recognizing that Hillary *probably* will win enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination.

It's funny that the Democratic establishment, which keeps touting the primacy of rule-following and 'math', refuses to itself acknowledge the math. The "math" of the primary rules has a built-in threshold for clinching a nomination for precisely one reason: to specify a point at which the nomination is actually CLINCHED. If Bernie had the kind of support that someone like John Kasich had - the 5-15% range- then Clinton would already have clinched the nomination .

This is a very important distinction to make, because what the shrill hillary fans will not admit is that simple fact. The RULES already in place are designed to give a clinch to a candidate who is FAR ahead. Clinton is NOT far ahead in pledged delegates. Sanders is NOT eliminated by math the way that Ted Cruz was, and Cruz stayed in even after the 'math' happened to him. He ultimately dropped out at a time where his share of the votes was much, much smaller than the share that Bernie has claimed either then or now.

So let's cut the bullshit about 'the math'. If bernie was such an outlier in the Democratic primary voting population, then he'd already be eliminated if he was truly a hopeless longshot. If Hillary fans wished it was a 'winner-take-all' system of closed primaries, then they should be more vocal about that. Because it's how they really feel. t's amazing that a guywho wins every county, or almost every county ,in multiple states is compared to NADER...a stunningly stupid comparison.

And let us not forget: 99% of the adult population in USA does NOT read political blogs, or Politico, The hill, WaPo editorial page, WSJ editorial page, NYT, etc. Old media has been dying for years. The TV pundits are trying to cash in on this election year as much as possible, but they know that as soon as election wraps up, it's back to a dying business model. Like a cactus in the desert, Old Media pundits will increasingly rely on the rainstorms of election years to keep their bread buttered. They need the horse race, class war, and protests. It's all $$ for them. That will never change. So we have a big chance right now to GET THE ATTENTION of the Apathetic America--- the huge bloc of independents and non-voters. Who is more important, the voting public or the pundits on corporate media/establishment blogs/ DNC think tanks? According to the Hillay supporters in the DC bubble mindset, the status quo is just fine. Obama was great, so the future will be just fine! Don't mind the rise of Trumpism, let's just play identity politics and let that keep winning elections!

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www.twitter.com/DemFromCT/status/733349807645949952
www.twitter.com/DemFromCT/status/733350565313449984

A link to an establishment Democrat blogger who says that the primaries need to be MORE onerous, and that Nate Silver is wrong for recommending same-day registration/open primaries/etc [he deleted the 1/2 tweet for some reason, but 2/2 is still there].
So much for "Big Tent Democrats" these days , eh? The 'centrists' have sold out completely on both principle and practice. There's no 'pragmatism', it's just selling the fuck out completely for whatever reason. And we're supposed to trust Clinton to put teeth back into the Voting Right Act and our efforts to maintain voting for everyone, including POC and students? Will she punish the Left wing by doing nothing on these issues?

So what is really going on with these "Dropout Birthers" who keep spinning a narrative that Bernie is 'bad' or 'wrong' or 'evil' or 'negative' for refusing to drop out at Clinton's convenience? Despite the fact that she didn't drop out in 2008?

It's simple: they know that the sooner they can push Bernie off the stage, and mute his spotlight, they can go back to politics as usual. More of the status quo. Lay the groundwork for Clinton's move to the center, which is coming either this year or post-election. They will try to silence the progressive wing of the party in steps, by selectively choosing which issues to be 'progressive' on (like abortion) while shifting more and more to the Right on economic issues. TPP will have its Overton window nudged right by the Clintonistas. Incrementalism and dismissal of offshore cash/ campaign finance reform/ big bank regulations/ etc will be on the stage replacing Sanders, in their mind.

Sanders needs to be silenced so he is unable to help form a strong left wing. The establishment , including Obama, is now creating smear labels for Sanders supporters, referring to us as the "Tea Party of the left". The hard-right is getting STRONGER and more powerful in politics by the day. The left wing is losing power year after year, and depressed turnout in this Clinton Coronation slash Primary has scared progressives as we watch Trump rack up historic vote totals.

The gate-crashers in the GOP actually crashed their gate before we did. We went for incrementalism under Obama and got it, and it was indeed better than Romney or McCain would have been. But the right wing has seized control of their party, and the establishment Left (read: moneyed folk, mostly) has tried like hell to beat back the left wing. They lied about people of color in order to create a meme that Bernie is only for white voters (read : young white males , 'bros') in order to mask their own biggest weaknesses with Clinton's mass incarceration, welfare reform, and drug war. It's strategic politics to lie about Sanders and his movement in order to marginalize them, and nothing better represents the tradition of white patriarchal political practice than the willingness of the Clinton campaign to accept and promote these lies about the Sanders movement. A bit ironic, but mostly it's just cruel and depressing.

It's not Sanders supporters who must come to their senses. It is the Democratic establishment on the verge of continuing its losing national strategy, its epic Congressional losing streak, and increased independent voter registration.

The other big lie from Team Clinton ? That we should just ignore the problem of superdelegates. Over at establishment blogs, they like to quote an essay by Nate Silver on the history of delegates. But I don't need to read a fucking essay when simple logic says the following:

even if all the superdelegates did was pick whoever had most pledged delegates at the end, then their function is REDUNDANT> so they must b ELIMINATED. It's not rocket science.

But that is where Nate Silver and the other pundits are wrong. the System IS rigged precisely because it refuses to jettison illogical features like superdelegates.

One hillary supporter tweeted to Sanders supporters that " If you don't like closed "primaries", get your state to change. But not DURING election.".
And how do we get the establishment to create fairer primary rules? John Oliver blasted both D and R parties for shitty primary rules that could be fixed, in this week's episode. Do we just call up the state party establishment and tell them to 'cut it out' like Hillary did Wall St in 2007? I don't think so.