The Clinton Meal Ticket: Sympathy for the Recipients

There are two things that have been posted A LOT in the last few days:

1) Bernie isn't raising money for down ticket Dems (which means they don't owe him support)

And

2) State and Local Democratic officials seem to be "rigging" the game for Hillary.

I think this is all logically tied up to the folks who have gotten comfortable receiving money from the Clinton Fundraising Gravy Train - these people have legitimate fears about where their next paycheck is going to come from if the Clinton Folk (Foundation and Fundraising Team) decide to be done with politics.

While it is easy for those raised in the concept of democracy means everyone has a vote and all the votes count to view this as a bad take on the Godfather franchise ("Someday, I might need a favor...&quot the Clintons are generating income that pays the bills of A TON of people in the party.

Pretend for one second the Clintons decide to take all of their donations and use them to benefit the planet instead - think Jimmy Carter - by, I don't know, building wells in drought stricken areas, or actually fixing things in Haiti, or whatever. (Seems like they dabbled ineffectively in some of those efforts - it must have been a relief when "helping a few friends with their fracking issues" was so much easier and profitable.)

If the Clintons decide to "be done with politics" where is the money going to come from to pay the bills? Of course they are scared - Bernie isn't offering to cover their bills!

Yes, while it may look like TREASON or CRIMINAL LIKE BEHAVIOR or NOT DEMOCRACY it doesn't FEEL THAT WAY to the people screwing with the registrations, or giving bad directions at a caucus, or trying to remove votes. In fact, for the True Believers ("Hillary or Trump - God save us all!&quot it might almost be viewed as a sacrifice for the greater good. Soldiers are trained to run toward people shooting guns at them; what would you do to save the country from a Trump presidency?

It is a classic case of SITUATIONAL ETHICS - it is easy to believe in the CONCEPT of Democracy right up until you realize most people are REALLY STUPID and bonus: their dumbass decisions are going to make you unemployed/broke.

So, yes, the party elite prefer Hillary, and yes, they are going to do everything in their power, sometimes unethically, to make sure she wins. And yes, the Bernie campaign scares them silly, because ACTUAL DEMOCRACY IS NOT A MONEY MAKING PROPOSITION and extra bonus: we have a celebrity focused culture, and the Clintons are Celebrities - who doesn't like to rub elbows with them?

It only looks like a corrupt oligarchy - and who even knows what that word means, right? It's the Road to Hell, and it always starts with the best of intentions.

It is the Politics of Money and Power, and the people who have accidentally steeped themselves in it probably don't even know when they crossed over into Mafia land. It might even feel normal or simply business as usual at this point - we humans are really good at normalizing horrible stuff.

I kind of feel sorry for them. Except for that whole subverting the principles of democracy thing, of course. That just pisses me off.