theintercept | Last night, the Associated Press — on a day when nobody voted — surprised everyone by abruptly declaring
the Democratic Party primary over and Hillary Clinton the victor. The
decree, issued the night before the California primary in which polls
show Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a very close race, was based on the
media organization’s survey of “superdelegates”: the Democratic Party’s
720 insiders, corporate donors, and officials whose votes for the
presidential nominee count the same as the actually elected delegates.
AP claims that superdelegates who had not previously announced their
intentions privately told AP reporters that they intend to vote for
Clinton, bringing her over the threshold. AP is concealing the identity
of the decisive superdelegates who said this.
Although the Sanders campaign rejected the validity
of AP’s declaration — on the ground that the superdelegates do not vote
until the convention and he intends to try to persuade them to vote for
him — most major media outlets followed the projection and declared Clinton the winner.
This is the perfect symbolic ending to the Democratic Party primary: The
nomination is consecrated by a media organization, on a day when nobody
voted, based on secret discussions with anonymous establishment
insiders and donors whose identities the media organization — incredibly
— conceals. The decisive edifice of superdelegates is itself
anti-democratic and inherently corrupt: designed to prevent actual
voters from making choices that the party establishment dislikes. But
for a party run by insiders and funded by corporate interests, it’s only
fitting that its nomination process ends with such an ignominious,
awkward, and undemocratic sputter.
