Dueling Conspiracy Theories

While in the real world CORVID-19 has us all under lockdown, we are looking at the greatest economic hit since the Great Depression, and  North Korea has started testing missiles again, online there is still a lot of complaining about how Sanders was robbed of his rightful nomination by the DNC.

A helpful 'Bro explained to The Omnivore that just as "Rachel Maddow blew Russia out of proportion" so is the Hillary / Establishment Liberal ensconced in conspiracy theory as the MAGA-Right.

Uh, no, guys. That's not true. Let's look.

1. Sanders Left Conspiracy Theories
Forget about Hillary having Seth Rich murdered: that's pretty 2017. No, today the theory is this--the DNC "machine" used its nefarious influence to crush an all-but-victorious Sanders by forcing (possibly with Obama-help) Amy and Pete to drop out of the race the night before Super Tuesday and keeping Warren in to split his vote! This act of subterfuge was illicit and justifies none of the 'bros from voting for Biden in November!

2. The Hillary-Russia Conspiracy Theory
The Bros believe that the media and people like Rachel Maddow have "way, way, WAY overblown" the Russian causes of Hillary's loss to the point where it is a "conspiracy theory" among the liberal centrists. Is that true? Is "But Russia" the equivalent of, say, the Seth Rich conspiracy theory?

Uh . . . no. Not if you read the Mueller Report these guys all seem to think exonerated Trump and Russia (somehow).

Russia attacked our elections in an unprecedented way not only stoking internal divisions (which included, yes, promoting Sanders as a divisive wedge) but mainly and importantly laundering hacked emails from the DNC through Wikileaks on the same day that the "pussy tape" dropped to give Trump's campaign new life.

Also: the conventional wisdom is that Hillary had strong segments of the populace totally hating on her for better or worse reasons (either because the Clintons are Corrupt or because decades of right-wing messaging had sunk in, take your pick) and was not an inspiring candidate in any case.

The Analysis: One is Bullshit. One Is True
The idea that people over-promoted Hillary's loss due to "Russians" isn't the case. No centrist outlet claims that Russians changed votes (there's no evidence of that--if they had, they likely would have changed them in favor of Hillary to try to taint her win). The blame for Hillary's loss is generally attributed to an incredible streak of luck in where Trump won his votes (less than .05% of the total votes cast decided the election) and the fact that Hillary was not especially inspiring on the trail.

Also: The Comey letter is not mentioned--but there's some evidence that it hurt things going into the final days (and it was released, partially, because Comey was acting to head off Russian disinformation about Hillary--something that is often forgotten) and, well, the Wikileaks released definitely hurt her with the Sanders left--perhaps that was fair--but it was still Russia.

If someone had aired the internal Trump campaign's communications, what then?

On the other hand . . .

The Sanders Story Doesn't Hold Up
The Sanders campaign--right from the very top--Sanders himself--has coalesced around the narrative that The Establishment went ALL IN to stop him on the eve of his victory. It misses a bunch of stuff. Namely:

• The Establishment tried like hell to get him to moderate his message and build party unity. He didn't. Even people inside his own campaign knew he had weaknesses with "average Democrats" but Sanders wouldn't shift gears. Sanders, according to NYT reports, felt he had to have crushed the Democratic establishment before moving to unify--which, while, yeah? Maybe? That's the kind of plan that works brilliantly until it doesn't. When it doesn't? It fails catastrophically.
• Biden's win in South Carolina was telegraphed for months. It was his whole strategy--and Sanders had plenty of time to prepare for that. He didn't. Why? Well, for one thing, he didn't want to go full negative on Biden--which is good--but for another thing, reaching out for the black vote that blocked him in 2016? Nope--he didn't want to do it--and didn't do it. The is the equivalent of giving up two "strikes" knowing you'll hit a home-run on the 3rd. If it works, great? If it doesn't . . .
• Sanders counted on winning with a narrow coalition. The theory was that with the moderate lane clogged he could vanquish Warren and hold the left lane. Again: the "But what if--" argument was ignored here. Pete and Amy had zero traction with Biden's black base. The Democrats as a party--and notably not in Vermont--counts the black vote as a key part of its coalition (black voters' general indifference to Hillary as a whole is part of what cost her). After seeing Biden's dominance there, it was clear that Pete and Amy had no clear path forward. Pete was in the hole with black voters and Amy was invisible to them. Sanders, of course, figured that even facing daunting odds--they'd never drop out. Well, they did. They also didn't have to endorse Biden, right? But, uh, they're Democrats. So of course they did. Tulsi did.

In other words, Sanders decided (with full field of view) to run a campaign that counted on three very likely possibilities not happening. He refused to moderate his message or even try for unity. He bet that Biden's performance in SC wouldn't revitalize Biden after losing the early states, and he bet that he could win with a plurality of the vote since how in the blazes would anyone else ever drop out???

He may have been right to stick to his guns on the first point--but on the second two, these were not impossible calls to make and framing them as "Conspiracy Theory" is complete bullshit. Note that Bernie hasn't told his followers that "No, the polls weren't fixed and the exit polls don't actually prove a conspiracy to fix votes."

Also--it's clear from his choices of surrogates that he wanted a fight with the establishment. He just couldn't' convert that to being friends when he decided he needed to.