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| Selected tweets. Click to enlarge. |
Supporters of US Senator Bernie Sanders, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton to become the next President but who has yet to pledge his delegates to Clinton or even suspend his campaign, became livid and took to social media, expressing their anger over Schultz's continued participation in the convention, as shown in the sampling of tweets from Twitter at the right.
Sanders issued a statement through a press release on his web site, which states in part,
...the party now needs new leadership that will open the doors of the party and welcome in working people and young people. The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race.Schultz's resignation was seen as an effort to provide unity to the shattered Democratic party and prevent an even more chaotic scene than was displayed at last week's Republican convention after Wikileaks published nearly 20,000 emails fromt the DNC showing collusion between the DNC and Clinton campaigns while actively working against Sanders' campaign. Also revealed in the #DNCLeak dump were high-ranking DNC officials collaborating with certain media figureheads and entire media organizations—which is a complete violation of journalistic ethics—as well as hiring workers to troll pro-Sanders groups on the Internet.
In an all-too-familiar Clintonian tactic to redirect attention away from the substance of the issues, Clinton campaign chairman Robby Mook alleged that "Russian state actors broke into the DNC" and "are releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
Social media user Lorraine Vigoriti expresses a sentiment many Sanders' supporters hold regarding the latest attempt by Clinton to deflect attention away from yet-another-scandal:
UH-OH, they've just written another chapter in 'Alice In #WTF-Land'!!! Once again, as with the DESTROYED EMAILS, does the HRC campaign think that we are DUMBocrats? Does it really matter WHO leaked the emails or WHY they leaked them??
IF there WEREN'T any NEFARIOUS EMAILS between the Clinton campaign and the DNC then they would NOT have gotten leaked!!!!
Think outside the box...or better yet, flatten the friggin' box and place it in the recycling bin...The efforts to reunite the party with Schultz's resignation further angered Sanders' supporters when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement supporting Schultz's resignation. In her statement, Clinton announced that Schultz will become an honorary chair of Clinton's 50-state campaign.
In essence, Schultz is being moved from once having been a chair of Clinton's 2008 election campaign to using her position at the DNC to get Clinton nominated to now directly back in Clinton's campaign. Despite some assertions that Schultz's appointment to Clinton's campaign "means nothing," why afford any courtesy to such a polarizing figure at this point in time?
Steven Krohn, CEO and founder of Krohn Media, who is not backing any of the major party candidates, lamented, "Clinton and Schultz were colluding the entire time. The entire primary was a sham. Where are the people who were conned by all of this? Bernie's people should be screaming!" His sentiment is replete throughout social media:
How can Clinton possibly think that appointing the person who has been proven to have corrupted the primary process as honorary chair of her campaign ever could be a good idea or that the outcome would be anything other than chaos? If anything, it will drive the party's stalwart progressives further away, creating a massive 9.0 earthquake that will leave a chasm deeper than the Mariana Trench. Indeed, 'Bedlam erupts' was a trending headline in the news as Schultz spoke to a local gathering of Florida delegates who were not at all pleased to see her:
One could argue that Clinton needs Schultz's ability to bring money into her campaign. But that brings the subject of the corrupting influence of money in politics—a hallmark of Sanders' supporters' distrust in the political system—immediately back to the fore, right in the middle of the nominating process at the convention. Another reason for showcasing Schultz—one many Sanders' supporters are wont to believe—is that this has been part of the plan all along and she is reaping the rewards for a job well-done.
Some would argue that Clinton is disconnected from the average American, which greatly increases the angst and anger that give rise to why so many of Sanders' supporters are "Bernie or Bust." It also is perhaps one of the myriad reasons that could explain polling data released this morning showing Trump jumping up ten points to a three-point lead over Clinton:
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has promised, "More Clinton leaks to come" in a recent tweet:
Given all of the existing controversy surrounding Clinton, the DNC, and especially "the emails" (are we going to let "the emails" become a thing like "the gays" and even "becoming a thing" have become?) one can only wonder whether the DNC is purposefully imploding. The one person who would have avoided turning the Democratic convention into more of a spectacled five-ring circus than the Republican convention was is playing by the script handed to him.
This leaves many wondering why the superdelegates—who can switch their vote at any time—are not supporting the one candidate still in the race who would end all of this.
I created a remix of sorts from this morning's Morning Joe clips, which is well worth listening to through the end (yes, even the bits about Trump):
Perhaps—just perhaps—Sanders is playing by the script handed to him in an effort to show the Democrats exactly how disastrous their anointed nominee will perform in the coming November election. His speech this evening will reveal whether that's the case, or whether his fear of a Trump presidency has, in fact, caused him to sell out.
(If you haven't already, check out my previous article, #DNCLeak Email Shows DNC Planning Clinton Nomination Before 1/3 of Nation Voted now on HuffPo)
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