Yesterday, the AP, the New York Times, and other outlets declared Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president. This presents something of a problem since that declaration was made before the final primaries took place and also before the pledged super-delegates had actually voted as well. But mostly, this is just another example of why the mainstream media and establishment candidates like Hillary Clinton are losing their credibility in the eyes of more and more people.
For one thing, a prime narrative of the Sanders campaign for a long time now has been that the media has buoyed and promoted Clinton's campaign at the expense of his own. The argument goes that by denying to cover his own campaign, the media has essentially played an active role in anointing Clinton as the nominee instead of standing by and letting the democratic process play out. When two of the most influential papers in the country call the race settled and done with on the eve of the last primaries, effectively saying those votes don't matter, it only cements that narrative in the eyes of Sanders supporters and further legitimatizes the more mainstream news sources and establishment institutions overall. (As an aside, Chris Matthews gave the game away week ago, when he told Sanders' campaign manager what time the press would call the race for Hillary)
More damaging in the long run, though, is that these declarations ignore the blatant and near fatal weaknesses of Hillary's campaign. Don't worry about the polls showing she's tied or losing to Drumpf, don't worry about the FBI investigation into her emails, and certainly, above all, don't mention that she's almost literally the most hated presidential candidate in history to make you think twice about her viability in the general election. The flippancy and outright dismissive attitude from the Democratic party and the press regarding these issues just gives the impression that the Clinton campaign doesn't know how to handle these issues and would rather you just pay attention to whatever racist bullshit is coming out of Drumpf's mouth instead. It's not a facade that will withstand any scrutiny, but hey, she has a vagina, so I'm sure that will completely erase the conversations over those issues or her possible indictment.
Last thing I want to touch on is how this whole business affects the race going forward. Hillary has been out and about the last few weeks calling on Sanders follow her oh-so-noble example and drop out the race and support her campaign, like she did with Obama in '08. That she pledged that support for a Cabinet position is a detail that seems to slip her mind when recounting her tale of political sportsmanship, which, I think, is not going to go well for her in the long run. Hillary does not do well with independents, at all, so in order to win the election she is going to need to retain as many of Sanders supporters as she can. In order to do this, she is going to have to make concessions to the Sanders campaign and the general movement behind it. In my mind, this doesn't mean making Bernie VP, it means forming a cabinet largely composed of progressives who will fight to alter the status quo. In no way do I see that happening, let alone Hillary seeing the need to do so, given how condescending she's been to Sanders supporters in the past. So in all probability, Hillary will throw some token bone out which the Sanders supporters will see as a naked political sham and well, who knows what they'll do?
Depending on how the California primary goes, if it's subject to the 6-hour wait times or voters being mysteriously purged (sorry, dropped) from the registration logs like they were in Arizona, Nevada, and New York, or if there's another "too close to call" vote that Hillary suddenly wins like in Iowa or Kentucky, then those early pronouncements that she's the winner are going to leave a bitter taste in a lot of people's mouths. The Democratic party is much more fractured and contentious than a lot of people are realizing. If the only step Hillary takes to bind those fractures together is "bow down and kiss the fucking ring already", then, well, America swearing in its first orange President becomes much, much more likely.
RT
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