OK. Lets start from the beginning.
Suppose you are at a basketball game or a football game and one of the teams wins. Not just wins but wins big, by, say, 20 points. However, because the home team is the favorite of the Stadium owners the game is declared a draw? (The "Stadium Owner" here is the Un Democratic Party of the Democrats which gets to choose a candidate for President, i.e. it's an intermediary which is not in the Constitution and thus can be abolished if it is found to be corrupt.)
For Example;
Bernie Sanders WON New Hampshire by over 60% and as far as delegates go they are in a tie AND have been in a tie from the beginning BECAUSE of this Super Delegate system which puts more weight on the party's candidate over a candidate chosen by the people of America (only thing allowed in the Constitution) to 'protect us' from a "Trump" (i.e. a guy who can rile up the population and get more votes, like Obama did in 2008). IN other words, establishment (democrat party) rhetoric on this is nonsense yet women on he left are buying into whatever Hillary says as if it's Gospel.
Here is a screen shot of how the delegates were distributed for a State Hillary lost (more article extracts below).
NPR:
OK. Now lets look at the explanations given to us by our none biased cultural commentators;
Lets start with Samantha Bee's explanation of Super Delegates;
Video: Samantha Bee Answers All of Your Superdelegate Questions
Summary by Samantha Bee with my commentary:
At 1 min: 'Political Parties aren't the government. They are semi-private clubs. If they wanted to they could use a sorting hat to choose their candidates' - Samantha Bee {Me: i.e. they are not subject to the rules of democracy or our constitution or our sense of fair play or our morality.}
At 1:30: 'In the 1800's party members would just gather together and select thier nominee in a bar' - Bee
{Me: The parties have always had an aristocratic bent to it where a small group pf people decided who the nation would have to vote or not vote for and the other party did the same. This leaves room for these two small groups of people to create rules that they will both run by. In economics this is called a cartel like OPEC or an "Oligopoly" where a small group of companies choose the price and other rules they will run their business on and then just compete on advertising/brand. In other words, no matter how you look at it, this is a bad situation. For example; 1. BOTH parties get money from Oil, as you would expect in a cartel, the only difference is the amount ... and they act accordingly & 2. Democratic party people do stuff for their funders/donation-givers and then they get well paid jobs making this more like a Party & Corporate run democracy than a Constitutional one, i.e. as long as Corporate influence exists in politics AND as long as the democratic party creates its own rules for it's own reason defying moral law as laid down by the Constitution, we don't have a Constitutional Government (don't worry about the past. We had slaves in the past and don't anymore. Some things are meant to change as people and communities evolve enough to take up their responsibilities as laid down by the Constitution).}
At 1:50 - It was the Democratic Party that fought the Vietnam protest voters in 1968 thus managing to keep the Vietnam War going JUST LIKE YOU WOULD EXPECT FROM A CARTEL THAT SEEKS IT"S OWN INTERESTS THAN OVER WHAT IS CONSTITUTIONALLY ALLOWED;
In this case 2/3rd's of Democrats voted for a non-Vietnam war candidate and the Democratic Party overturned it (is that why Hillary backed down against Obama, i.e. the Democratic party has written down somewhere in it's traitorous vaults that if we stack the deck and STILL get beaten then we must let him through or face a bad backlash?). Rules have changed since then BUT one thing hasn't changed, i.e. trying to keep power with the party elite by muting the voters voice in some way or another. For example what Robert Reich points out about the collaboration between the Democratic Party & The Media (but in not quite those words, sadly);
Robert Reich: They’ve marginalized Bernie at every turn The former secretary of labor breaks down our political press' lopsided coverage of the Democratic primary
Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked again. Back to the video.
At 3:35 - OK. Here it gets interesting. Samantha Bee says 'the Democratic Party ODeed on democracy and the grownups in the party created Super Delegates by making sure Governors and congressmen and other party movers and shakers have a say in the process' (you know, some people don't like the idea of some people thinking they need a big brother figure to tell them what is right especially when you are talking about who share assume power in a DEMOCRACY).
So the idea is that these Super Delegates can vote for any candidate (but all being from the same party they will obviously choose their party establishment as they tried to do with Obama till Hillary took it too far in her lies as to make a contested convention impossible without Hillary destroying her career in the process)
i.e.
At 4:45: 'If Bernie gets more votes than Hillary her Super Delegates will drop her faster than she drops her fake Southern accent when she leaves South Carolina'
OK. I see your point but you're leaving out basic psychology. Everyone in the media knew that a win could change momentum in an instant. They repeated this during the Iowa and New Hampshire events (after which I basically stopped watching). Iowa Hillary won by a coin toss and then New Hampshire Bernie won by a landslide... YET ALL OF MEDIA PUT THE SUPER DELEGATES ON THE SCREEN IN THIS FASHION;
(Full post: I Smash Rachel Maddow...)
In other words, these 'super delegates' were already choosing sides and giving the weight of the points to the one in their party establishment.
For example; If there is a ice hockey game and one side keeps tying with the winner because the hockey association (?) decided they want to give their own team more weight in the final results and in the public's perception then that would be BLATANTLY unfair. In the same way, in a political match up when one candidate constantly ties with another even when they lose then that too will effect the perception of people and the momentum of the election. Such repetitive facts are known to influence people (it's called "news" for a reason) and sometimes the corporate media will admit that it pulls the strings and sometimes it will say 'the American people decided this; or 'this is what the American people think' without ever pointing out who gave these false facts to the "American people" in the first place. All of corporate media does this to such an extent it's become accepted as normal.
At 4:50 - Samantha Bee accepts Hillary and her parties talking points as true and complete because Obama was able to beat the odds stacked against him because he confronted Hillary on her & her husbands constant lies about him.
Bernie backed down and the perception of losing by a large amount created by this Super Delegate scam pushed him down further than where he would have been without it. It's basic marketing. The Corporate media has done this to such an extent that many writers noticed this and when they didn't Jon Stewart did (back when they did this same 'media blackout' thing to Ron Paul cause he wasn't cool with party establishment).
At 4:55 - Samantha Bee says 'If Super delegates don't subvert of the people what is thier purpose?'. She answers this herself as, 'Super Delegates are like driving instructors putting the brakes on democracy' (apparently this makes sense to her so I have to answer it)
(The role of super delegates... to put the brakes on a voters choice?)
Bee continues: 'she will only put her foot on the brake if the party is about to do a Thelma and Louise' for example; if someone has been accused of adultery
(like Hillary's husband?)
Samantha Bee further explains: 'When Democratic voters don't like their selection then Super Delegates can help them fix it' (Yes, mommy!)
The idea is that if you think the candidate is unelectable (something which hasn't happened yet) then the Super Delegates will be useful. In other words, she doesn't believes the score of a team has an influence on it's position in the race in the public's perception. OR she believes the Super Delegates have been protecting us from Bernie Sanders by skewing public perception in favor of Hilary Clinton.
Then Samantha Bee claims that the Super Delegates are there to protect us from someone like Donald Trump (i.e. a person who followed standard GOP talking points to the top... which is what Hillary did, i.e. say what would please the base to get to the top. If Trump has to go then so does Hillary. If the idea is that 'Super Delegates stop demagoguery' then I have to point to the Iraq War coverup and the Bernie Sanders betrayal to point out the only demagogues here are the media and every leader in this country as their followers follow them without question... except maybe Bernie Sanders who actually comes with a real platform)
As Daily Beast put it: According to Bee, superdelegates do not exist to stop someone like Sanders. They are there to stop someone like Donald Trump. “Believe me, Republicans would give their left nut for superdelegates right now,” she concluded.
In closing: What Samantha Bee thinks 'what we should do is thank the Super Delegates' .... for helping to subvert democracy. Clearly, Hillary has made Samantha Bee useless as a political commentator.
BTW, Hillary's argument of going in with less on the table to negotiate with doesn't make the Democrats position stronger but weaker. IN negotiation you give and take. With Hillary we will probably go down the Republican path again as that is what she will need to win a second term. It's what she did last time she was Co-President.
Related Posts about Super Delegates:
Concluding Remarks;
More on Super Delegates;
Super Delegates isn't really a controversial issue, though it should be. Everyone in the news was talking about how winning a State could shift momentum and make someone win. Here is an article example of what the PERCEPTION OF WINNING can mean to momentum;
Washington Post: In South Carolina, will Clinton’s expected victory shift momentum?
In other words, simply winning ONE State can shift momentum. Imagine if the delegates were stacked in such a way Hillary always got the better of every or most contests? That's what Super Delegates do. They create an impression - a valid one - that the one with more delegates has more momentum, i.e. the one with MORE delegates is actually winning. The fact that some delegates were pledged to the political Establishment form the start doesn't matter when you crunch the numbers without changing the system. The media, more often then not, seems just to follow the talking points of the loudest person.
Article: History Buff On Super Delegates: One week after the Iowa Caucus, many of us believed that the worst of the delegate process was over, that the head-scratching arithmetic and archaic procedures were largely behind us, and that the nation’s first primary would at least resemble that representative democracy thing we’d signed up for. We could not have been more wrong.
On Tuesday, the Bernie Sanders campaign came away with a historic victory in New Hampshire, delivering the second-biggest route in the history of the state’s Democratic primary, and collecting 60% of the popular vote. In spite of this, Hillary Clinton will, in all likelihood, be leaving New Hampshire with more delegates than Bernie Sanders. As it stands, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by 350 total delegates, this despite the fact that Sanders has won 34 of the 66 delegates allotted in the first two contests.
How did this happen?
Article: NPR On Super Delegates;
"The reason superdelegates came into being in the interim period between the 1980 and 1984 elections was to allow the party establishment an increased voice in the nomination process," he wrote.
That gives the party some space to overrule primary and caucus voters. The goal wasn't to shut voters out, Putnam adds. Rather, the Democratic Party wanted to make sure it nominated someone the party believed could win in a general election, as the party feared primary voters might choose a candidate that's too extreme.
And when those superdelegates pick a candidate, those endorsements matter. The endorsements a candidate racks up in the so-called invisible primary have in the past been a strong indicator of who will eventually win the nomination, political scientists have found.
As we wrote back in November, it's all a combination of the Clintons' being longtime Democrats who once occupied the White House while Sanders is not a Democratic senator and has never been a Democrat.
But just as they can pick whom they want, superdelegates can also change their minds.
Indeed, a few Sanders supporters appear to be banking on that. As of 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, 1,556 Sanders supporters had signed a MoveOn.org petition asking the six New Hampshire superdelegates who have pledged to support Clinton to change their minds.
Given the nature of Super Delegates and media co-operation with the Democrat establishment, it's no wonder Bernie Sanders followers are pissed off and want to leave;
BERNIE SANDERS WINS THE WEST VIRGINIA PRIMARY MAY 11, 2016 - After Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic primary in West Virginia, Donald Trump coins a new nickname for the Vermont senator. (4:32)
Highlights;
With this view Trevor Noah manages to skip the entire last few months (or maybe he just didn't notice). Which is impressive in its own right. Most Bernie Sanders supporters are more aware about what's being going on. Here's a summary of why it's a good idea to avoid Hillary;
Robert Reich: They’ve marginalized Bernie at every turn The former secretary of labor breaks down our political press' lopsided coverage of the Democratic primary
In detail;
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