Very Few Think Trump's DOJ/FBI Will Be Neutral

The chart above is from an AP/NORC Poll -- done between January 9th and 13th of a nationwide sample of 1,147 adults, with a 3.9 point margin of error.
 

Trumpist Fascism Can Be Defeated By Creating A Fair And Inclusive Economy

 

How can we keep a Trump-style fascism from rearing its ugly head in the future? Robert Reich has an answer. He believes we must create a fair and inclusive economy - an economy that gives all citizens an opportunity to thrive. Here is part of what he writes:

I also want to point up a central dilemma awaiting the nation if and when Harris wins: Trump loyalists will remain a major force in American politics. . . .

Almost exactly 30 years ago, I predicted that widening inequalities of income and wealth would create an American oligarchy powerful enough to rig the economic game against average working people. This would make average working people so angry at the unfairness and arbitrariness of the system that they’d be easy prey for demagogues who’d channel their anger into fury at immigrants, Black people, government officials, gay people, and others.

Sadly, I believe I was correct.

Obviously, an explanation for some phenomenon is not a justification for it. Understanding the roots of Trumpism doesn’t mean accepting Trumpism.

But when Harris wins, we will have to begin the hard work of creating an economy of shared prosperity in which it’s possible to succeed without a college degree and in which large swathes of America that have been virtually abandoned by industry gain new sources of growth and jobs.

Right now, it’s easy to sympathize with Hillary Clinton’s description of Trump voters as “deplorables,” but they are our fellow citizens and will continue to be our fellow citizens. Unless we change the circumstances that have made them fodder for Trumpism, we can expect trouble for many years to come.

Some of you may be saying to yourself: Let’s get Harris elected before we dwell on next steps.

The reason I bring this up now is in the hope we don’t become so infuriated with those who support Trump that, when Harris wins, we forget the bitter wellsprings that Trump exploited to get as far as he did. Because if nothing is done to change the system that got us here, future demagogues like Vance will almost surely exploit the same bitterness for their own selfish ends.

The strongest defense we have against a future of Trumpist fascism is a large and growing middle class comprised of people who, although they may have supported Trump, come to feel they have a stake in America.

Most Voters Say U.S. Elections Are Conducted Fairly

 The charts above are from the new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 16th and 19th of a nationwide sample of 1,278 registered voters, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

46% Of U.S. Workers Say They Are Not Paid A Fair Wage

The chart above reflects the results of a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between February 5th and 8th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,255 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 2.9 points, and for registered voters is 3.0 points.

It shows that nearly half (46%) of American workers feel they are not getting a fair wage, but are being underpaid.

Mainstream Media Should Do A better Job With The News

Right-Wing media sites do not do a decent job of bringing the truth to their viewers/readers. They are nothing more than propaganda media sites. The mainstream media does a better job of reporting the truth, but sometimes they even come up short -- especially when reporting on progressive views and bills.

Here is how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich describes the shortcomings of the mainstream media:

I’m often asked how I keep up with the news. Obviously, I avoid the unhinged rightwing outlets pushing misinformation, disinformation, and poisonous lies.

But I’ve also grown a bit wary of the mainstream media –- the New York Times,Washington Post, CNN, and other dominant outlets — not because they peddle “fake news” (their reporting is usually first-rate) but because of three more subtle biases.

First, they often favor the status quo. Mainstream journalists wanting to appear serious about public policy rip into progressives for the costs of their proposals, but never ask self-styled “moderates” how they plan to cope with the costs of doing nothing or doing too little about the same problems.

A Green New Deal might be expensive but doing nothing about the climate crisis will almost certainly cost far more. Medicare for All will cost a lot, but the price of doing nothing about America’s cruel and dysfunctional healthcare system will soon be in the stratosphere.

Second, the mainstream media often fail to report critical public choices. Any day now, the Senate will approve giving $768 billion to the military for this fiscal year. That’s billions more than the Pentagon sought. It’s about four times the size of Biden’s Build Back Better bill, which would come to around $175 billion a year. But where’s the reporting on the effects of this spending on the national debt, or on inflation, or whether it’s even necessary?

Third, the mainstream media indulge in false equivalences — claiming that certain Republican and Democratic lawmakers are emerging as “troublemakers” within their parties or that extremists “on both sides” are “radicalizing each other”.

These reports equate Republican lawmakers who are actively promoting Donald Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen with Democratic lawmakers who are fighting to protect voting rights. Well, I’m sorry. These are not equivalent. Trump’s big lie is a direct challenge to American democracy.

In the looming fight over whether to preserve the Senate filibuster, the mainstream media gives equal weight to both sides’ claims that the other side’s position is radical. But ask yourself which is more radical – abolishing the filibuster to save American democracy or destroying American democracy to save the filibuster?

You see, the old labels “left” versus “right” are fast becoming outdated. Today, it’s democracy versus oligarchy. Equating them is misleading and dangerous.

Why doesn’t the mainstream media see this? Not just because of its dependence on corporate money. I think the source of the bias is more subtle.

Top editors and reporters, usually based in New York and Washington, want to be accepted into the circles of the powerful – not only for sources of news but also because such acceptance is psychologically seductive. It confers a degree of success. But once accepted, they can’t help but begin to see the world through the eyes of the powerful.

I follow the mainstream media, but I don’t limit myself to it. And I don’t rely on it to educate the public about bold, progressive ideas that would make America and the world fairer and stronger. 

I read the Guardian, the American Prospect (which, full disclosure, I helped found thirty years ago), Mother Jones, and The Atlantic. I follow several blogs (Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo, for example). I listen to the always thoughtful Democracy Now. And I subscribe to a few newsletters (I hope you like this one and spread word of it). 

But even with news sources I trust, I still ask myself: how are choices being framed? What’s being left out? What big underlying issues are being assumed away or obscured?

When our democracy is under assault from so many directions, I think we need to educate and re-educate ourselves (and our children) about how to learn what’s really going on — how to absorb the news critically. Isn’t this a minimal responsibility of democratic citizenship?

"Big Lie" Kills GOP Confidence In A Fair Vote Count

The chart above is from the NBC News Poll -- done between October 23rd and 26th of a national sample of 1,000 adults, with a 3.1 point margin of error..

It shows that the confidence of voters that their vote will be fairly counted has dropped significantly in the last year. In October of 2020, 85% thought the vote count would be fair. That has dropped to 66% in October of 2021 -- a whopping 19 point difference.

The difference is almost completely among Republicans -- from 84% in 2020 to 41% is 2021. Trump's "big lie" about voter fraud and Democrats stealing the election from him is almost surely the reason for the drop in confidence among Republicans. Too many believe his lie!

There was no drop among Democrats -- 89% to 89%. And only a tiny drop among Independents -- 81% to 76%.

Only 16% Say Congressional Districts Will Be Drawn Fairly

The chart above reflects the results of the new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between August 14th and 17th of a national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,250 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 2.8 points, and for registered voters is 3 points.

Now that the census has been released, many states will need to redraw their congressional districts -- some to add and some to subtract districts. Only a few states have independent commissions to redraw the districts. In most states the districts are redrawn by the legislature. That means the party that controls the legislature can draw the districts to unfairly advantage their party (a process called gerrymandering).

The public knows this, and a plurality (44% of adults and 48% of registered voters) believes the districts will not be fairly drawn. Only 16% of adults (and 17% of registered voters) think the districts will be fairly drawn.

GOP Lost Fair Election - So They're Rigging Future Elections

The Republican Party doesn't believe in democracy, and they haven't believed in it for quite a while.

They lost the last presidential election by more than 7 million votes. A party that believes in democracy would alter their policies to reflect those the voters want. But the GOP is not doing that. 

Instead they are trying to rig future elections so they can return to power. They don't care what the voters want. They only care about seizing and remaining in power -- and for them that means changing the rules to keep millions of people from exercising their right to vote. And that have a whole bag of dirty tricks to accomplish that.

The following is part of an article by Michael Wines in The New York Times on the nasty GOP efforts:

Led by loyalists who embrace former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election, Republicans in state legislatures nationwide are mounting extraordinary efforts to change the rules of voting and representation — and enhance their own political clout.

At the top of those efforts is a slew of bills raising new barriers to casting votes, particularly the mail ballots that Democrats flocked to in the 2020 election. But other measures go well beyond that, including tweaking Electoral College and judicial election rules for the benefit of Republicans; clamping down on citizen-led ballot initiatives; and outlawing private donations that provide resources for administering elections, which were crucial to the smooth November vote.

And although the decennial redrawing of political maps has been pushed to the fall because of delays in delivering 2020 census totals, there are already signs of an aggressive drive to further gerrymander political districts, particularly in states under complete Republican control.

The national Republican Party joined the movement this past week by setting up a Committee on Election Integrity to scrutinize state election laws, echoing similar moves by Republicans in a number of state legislatures.

Republicans have long thought — sometimes quietly, occasionally out loud — that large turnouts, particularly in urban areas, favor Democrats, and that Republicans benefit when fewer people vote. But politicians and scholars alike say that this moment feels like a dangerous plunge into uncharted waters.

The avalanche of legislation also raises fundamental questions about the ability of a minority of voters to exert majority control in American politics, with Republicans winning the popular vote in just one of the last eight presidential elections but filling six of the nine seats on the Supreme Court.

The party’s battle in the past decade to raise barriers to voting, principally among minorities, young people and other Democrat-leaning groups, has been waged under the banner of stopping voter fraud that multiple studies have shown barely exists.

Trump's Claim Of Fraud Could Hurt GOP's Electoral Chances

 Donald Trump continues to rant that the election was rigged and rife with fraud -- and most elected Republican officials are remaining silent. They are afraid that Trump supporters will punish them in a future election if they tell the truth -- that the election was not rigged, voting machines did not malfunction, and there was no widespread fraud.

I think their silence is a huge mistake, and it's one that could hurt them in future elections. Note in the chart above that nearly 3 out of 4 Republicans (73%) believe what Trump is telling them. They do not think the election was fair.

If you thought elections were not held and counted fairly in this country, wouldn't that affect your choice of whether to vote or not? What's the point of voting if you think an election is rigged and has widespread fraud?

And it wouldn't take many Republicans staying at home on Election Day to make a big difference, especially in swing states. If only 5% or 10% decided their vote didn't matter since the election is rigged, that could help elect more Democrats in those swing states (and maybe even in some red states).

The chart above reflects the results of a recent Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between November 15th and 17th of a national sample of 1,500 registered voters, and has a 3.2 point margin of error.

Most Think Election Was Fair And Happy That Biden Won It

 The charts above reflect the results of a new Monmouth University Poll -- done between November 12th and 16th of a national sample of 810 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.

70% Of Republicans Say The Election Was Not Free & Fair

The chart above reflects the results of the new Politico / Morning Consult Poll -- done between November 6th and 9th of a national sample of 1,987 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.

 

The Economy Is NOT As Great As Trump/GOP Claims

Donald Trump loves to brag about how great the United States economy is, and if you are rich (like him and his buddies) then he might be right. But the truth for most Americans (in both the working and middle classes) is that the economy is not so great. They are struggling to make ends meet -- and falling further behind each month.

The thirteen charts above (from the Economic Policy Institute) paint a true picture of the U.S. economy. They show an economy geared to favor the rich at the expense of all other people.

This does not have to be. We have had economic policies in the past that were much fairer to everyone. But the Republicans don't want that, and until they are voted out of power we will continue to have this unfair economy.

The Effect Of GOP Economic Policy Is Inequality

I have discussed many times on this blog about the failure and unfairness of Republican economic policies. This chart (from The Intellectualist) vividly demonstrates that.

The left side of the chart shows the growth of income among the quintiles of the American economy between 1947 and 1979. Note that the economic policy in effect at that time caused pretty equal growth (percentage) among all five groups. Everyone benefitted from the growing productivity of the economy.

That changed in 1980, when the Republicans seized enough control of government to institute their own economic policies. They said that giving more to the rich would benefit everyone. They lied. Their policy, between 1980 and 2007, showed that it only benefitted the rich. The top 20% had income growth of 95%, and the top 1% had income growth of 261%.

How did everyone else (the bottom 80%) do? Not well. Those groups saw growth of only 15% to 33% -- a growth that didn't even keep up with inflation.

Remember this when you go to vote in 2020. Republican policies help only the rich -- and they continue to cling to those policies. It doesn't have to be that way. As the policies between 1947 and 1979 demonstrate, we can have an economy that is healthy and fair to everyone. But that can't happen until the Republicans are voted out of power.

Most Want Senate To Hold A Fair Trial With New Witnesses

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has asked that the Senate trial of Donald Trump call new witnesses, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is backing him up -- delaying send the impeachment to the Senate until she knows what the rules of the Senate trial will be. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't want that. He wants a short trial with no new witnesses.

McConnell may have to give on this, because the majority of the public agrees with Schumer. About 54% of voters want more witnesses called (including 66% of Democrats and 51% of Independents). Only 27% say no new witnesses should be called. Even a plurality of Republicans want to see more witnesses (43% to 39%).

Denying the right to call more witnesses is just going to make the Senate trial look rigged -- an unfair debacle designed to protect Trump by his party. Republican senators are going to have a tough time trying to defend that in the next election (which is now less than a year away).

The chart above is from the Morning Consult Poll -- done on December 19th and 20th of a national sample of 1,387 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

Our Tax System Is Now Regressive And Very Unfair

These charts are from an excellent article in The New York Times by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. If you care about the U.S. economy and fair taxation, I urge to to read the article.

The point made is that we no longer have a progressive tax system. Thanks to policies passed in the last few decades, we now have a regressive tax system. When you consider all taxes paid (local, state, federal), the system is not fair. In fact the richest 400 people in this country actually pay a smaller total tax rate than all other people in this country. The richest pay only a total tax rate of 23%, while the poorest 10% pay a total tax rate of 25.6%!

That's inexcusable. They should be paying a higher total tax rate than everyone else.

The chart below shows how this has happened. It shows the change in the total tax rate from 1962 (when it was much fairer) to 2018 (the current mess). The top 10% has seen their total tax rate go down 4.2 points, the top 1% by 13 points, the top 0.1% by 19.7 points, the top 0.01% by 24.2 points, and the richest 400 by 31.4 points. Meanwhile, the total tax rate for the bottom 90% has gone up!

It doesn't have to be this way. There are solutions which would re-institute a progressive tax system. Some suggestions are:

Raise the top federal income tax rate for the rich, and put a new higher tax on any income beyond $10 million.

Raise the corporate tax rate, and tax the difference between the U.S. tax rate and the rate they have by keeping money in a low-tax country.

Eliminate the tax subsidies for companies making millions or billions in profit.

Consider a wealth tax on the richest people.

Eliminate the capital gains tax, and tax all income as earned income.

Tax stock market trades.

Give the bottom 50% a rebate for at least part of the local and state taxes they pay.

Those are just some ideas. There may be others that make sense. But nothing will be done as long as Republicans control the White House and at least one of the houses of Congress. There's a chance that could be accomplished in 2020, but more needs to be done. Pressure must be put on the Democrats then to act appropriately (because sadly, there are some Democrats who have bought into the Republican lie that what is good for the rich is good for everyone).

Public Still Disapproves Of Trump/GOP Tax Cut Law

Republicans love to campaign on cutting taxes. It's their "thing". But they shot themselves in the foot when they passed their last tax cuts. Although they called it a "middle class tax cut", more than 80% of the benefits of that tax cut went to the very wealthy -- the people who did not need a tax cut. And the voting public knows that.

About 62% of the public thinks corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes, and 60% thinks the wealthy don't pay their fair share of taxes. They believe the tax system is unfair -- that it has been set up (by Republicans) to favor the rich.

And they see the last Trump/GOP tax cuts as just making the situation worse. Note in the chart above that most Americans disapprove of that tax cut.

Republicans didn't campaign on taxes in the 2018 election (because they knew their tax cut law was not popular), and they won't campaign on that in 2020. Their tax cuts for the rich law has taken their most popular campaign issue away from them -- and it was self-inflicted.

The charts above are from a survey by the Pew Research Center -- done between March 20th and 25th of a national sample of 1,503 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

GOP Judges More Unfair In Sentencing Than Dem. Judges

(This graphic image is from Colorado Peak Politics.)

I have been called a bleeding-heart liberal. That's OK. But I also worked in various aspects of law enforcement for nearly 30 years, and I believe crime should be punished (especially crimes against the safety or property of others) -- and I believe serious crimes should come with a prison sentence.

However, I also believe that when justice is meted out, it should be done fairly -- with no regard for race, ethnicity, gender, or economic status. But too often our courts do not operate that way. Some judges give Blacks harsher sentences than Whites for the same crimes  -- and women are given lesser sentences than men for the same crime. This is unfair, and makes a mockery of the "equal protection" clause of the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment.

Unfair sentencing is wrong, whether the offending judge is a Democrat or a Republican. But a new study shows that Republican Judges are more unfair in sentencing than Democratic judges -- significantly so. The study was done by Harvard Law School professors Alma Cohen and Crystal S. Yang. They studied 1,400 federal judges over a period of 15 years.

What they found was very disturbing, but not surprising. It seems that Republican judges gives Blacks harsher sentences than Whites, and they also give women lesser sentences than they give men -- all for the very same crimes. They found:

Linking approximately half a million defendants to their sentencing judges, we find that Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to longer prison terms than non-black defendants compared to Democratic-appointed judges.

Republican-appointed judges also sentence female defendants to shorter prison terms than males compared to Democratic-appointed judges.

These racial and gender disparities by political affiliation emerge at both the fact-finding and sentencing stages of the criminal justice process, and are robust to controlling for other judge and court characteristics, such as judge race, gender, and proxies for racial attitudes.

We also find that differences in disparities by political affiliation, particularly racial gaps in sentence length, expand when judges were given more discretion after the mandatory Guidelines were rendered advisory. Moreover, these enlarged differences cannot be solely explained by differences in the willingness of Republican-appointed and Democratic-appointed judges to depart from the Guidelines. These results suggest that a consequence of the advisory Guidelines system is an expansion of sentencing disparities by judge political affiliation.

Republican and Democratic-appointed judges treat defendants differently on the basis of their race and gender given that we observe robust disparities despite the random assignment of cases to judges within the same court. Our results also indicate that these disparities are not solely due to differences in the treatment of certain offense types by judge political affiliation as we find large racial and gender gaps even within specific crimes such as drug offenses. More speculatively, our results are consistent with some judges holding discriminatory attitudes given that we find larger disparities among judges who serve in courts from states with higher racial bias, which are disproportionately located in the South.

Our results suggest that a judge’s political ideology may affect how he or she views the dangerousness or blameworthiness of different defendants by race and gender.

According to our findings, racial disparities in sentencing would be almost halved if federal district courts were comprised of all Democratic-appointed judges, and reduced by more than five percent if courts were comprised of ten percent more judges appointed by Democratic presidents. In recent decades, the typical president has appointed roughly 160 district court judges in a four-year term.16 Under  the current composition of the federal court system, these appointments could change the partisan composition of district courts by 15 to 20 percentage points, which could substantially alter gender and racial disparities in the criminal justice system depending on the political affiliation of the appointing president. The potential to affect disparities is even larger for two-term presidents.

Public Gives A Resounding "NO" To Firing Of Mueller

Donald Trump has thrown a giant temper tantrum, both in appearances with the press and on twitter, after learning that his attorney had been served a search warrant and had documents in his possession seized (presumably that involved his connections with Trump). Part of his tantrum has been that he thinks the investigation being done by Robert Mueller is unfair, and nothing more than a "witch hunt".

This has revived the possibility that Trump may try to fire Robert Mueller. We know he wanted to do that last December, and was talked out of it by cooler heads in the White House. But many of those "cooler heads" (both among White House advisors and his attorneys) are now gone -- fired by Trump in an effort to get rid of people who did not agree with him. There may not be enough people left right now with enough sway over Trump to keep him from firing Mueller.

But if he did that, he would be getting himself in deep trouble. Many in Congress would see that as a bridge too far. Even more important is the opinion of the general public. A majority of the public sees the Mueller investigation as fair (52% to 32%) -- a 20 point margin. And an even bigger 56 point margin (69% to 13%) says Trump should not fire Mueller.

The American public already is unhappy with the Trump presidency. Firing Mueller could easily be the straw that broke the camel's back. There is already a blue wave building in the coming election, and firing Mueller could just hurt Republican candidates further -- and help give Trump a Congress he could not control. It could also be the end of his presidency.

These charts are from the new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between April 6th and 9th of a random national sample of 1,181 voters, with a 3.4 point margin of error.

The poll also asked those voters if they believed Trump when he said he did not have an affair with Stormy Daniels, and did not know about the $130,000 payment she received to keep quiet about the affair. The public does NOT believe Trump's denials!

They believe Trump did have an affair with Daniels by a 44 point margin, and that he did know about the payment to keep her quiet by a 35 point margin.

Most Americans Think The Nominating Process Was Fair

Bernie Sanders and his supporters have been complaining for months now that the Democratic Party's nominating process was not fair -- that it favored his opponent. But most Democrats disagree with that. About 59% say the process was fair, while only 38% say it wasn't. Both candidates knew the rules before they declared their candidacy, and neither candidate was favored by the party's officials or its rules.

While the Republicans have different nominating rules (with some state being winner-take-all, while all states were proportional for the Democrats), Republicans also believe their process was fair -- and by the same margins (59% to 38%).

But while Democrats believe the process was fair, a substantial majority likes the idea of open primaries/caucuses (where anyone can vote in the party's elections). About 63% favor open primaries/caucuses, while only 35% would like them closed (where only party members could vote).

The Republicans also like the idea of open primaries/caucuses, but by a much smaller margin (52% to 47%).

These charts were made from the results of a new NBC News Poll -- done between May 30th and June 5th of random national samples of 3,168 registered Democratic voters and 2,544 registered Republican voters. The margin of error for Democrats was 2.3 points, and for Republicans was 2.7 points.

In Defense Of The Democratic Party's Delegate Process

(This photo of the 2012 Democratic National Convention is from ottawalife.com.)

Bernie Sanders and his supporters have complained loudly that the delegate process of the Democratic Party is unfair -- that it is designed to support so-called "establishment" candidates. They are talking about the "super delegates", and say those delegates should support the nominee of the voters.

There are a couple of things wrong with their complaints. First, their candidate has won less delegates through the primary/caucus process than Hillary Clinton -- and has received over 2 1/2 million fewer votes than Clinton. Second, Barack Obama proved in 2008 that the process is not unfair -- by winning a majority support from those super delegates as an outsider.

The delegate process works for the good of the party, and is not unfair to any Democratic candidate -- and it does not need to be changed. Also, giving the super delegates an automatic slot at the national convention opens up more slots for rank-and-file Democrats to be able to go to the convention.

Here is a good defense of the current delegate process from Kevin Kelton at examiner.com:

The idea that the Democratic party's chosen system - designed in part by Sanders' campaign strategist Tad Devine - is somehow unfair only to Sanders is absurd. Unpledged "superdelegates" are not anonymous boogiemen. The are your senator and your congressman. Elizabeth Warren is a superdelegate. So is Al Franken, Sherrod Brown, Diane Feinstein, and Alan Grayson. So is President Obama, Vice President Biden, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Walter Mondale.

So is Sen. Bernie Sanders. Bernie actually gets to vote for himself!

Here is a breakdown of who makes up the 719 unpledged delegates:

• 20 distinguished Democratic party leaders, including current and former presidents, vice-presidents, congressional leaders, and DNC chairs
• 21 Democratic governors
• 46 Democratic members of the U.S. Senate
• 193 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives 
• 435 elected members of the Democratic National Committee (including the chairs and vice-chairs of each state's Democratic Party)

In short, they are the people Democrats have elected and cheered on for years. They are the people who campaigned for Pres. Obama and got him elected twice. They are the people who put their careers on the line to fight for and pass the Affordable Care Act, the stimulus bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, increasing the minimum wage, and every other piece of progressive legislation put before congress whether it passed or not. They are the most trusted names in the Democratic Party. They are us.

The 435 members of the DNC who also have superdelegate status are people who make politics their careers. They know their constituents, know their city and state, and in many cases know the candidates personally. They have been to the presidential rodeo and have deep experience with state and national campaigns. In short, they know this stuff far better than the average once-every-four-years primary voter.

To say that these career politicians - all experts in their field - have less standing to be convention delegates than some local Democratic club Treasurer in Kalamazoo simply because he got 41 votes at the party's district meeting is insane. If you were choosing someone to pilot your jumbo jetliner, you wouldn't complain if a group of career airline pilots were in on the decision.

The presidency is not a popularity contest. Sure, primary voters get the biggest say in the matter, as it should be. But the candidates that the two major parties offer up should be vetted not only by primary voters but by experts in the field who actually know them, have worked with them, and are best positioned to assess which candidate is prepared to lead the most powerful nation on earth.

And contrary to rumors being spread on social media, superdelegates are not stealth lobbyists planted to fix the nomination for the D.C. establishment. It's true that a few dozen of the 719 unpledged delegates are registered lobbyists or work for firms that lobby congress. But they weren't awarded their superdelegate status because of some backroom deal. They are superdelegates because they are respected party elders, like former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (who represents Taiwan's business interests in Washington) and former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (whose Gephardt Group does lobbying work for Turkey and several U.S. corporations).

These former-politicians-turned-lobbyists comprise less than ten percent of the superdelegates and little more than one percent of the total convention delegates. The idea that this tiny subgroup of a few dozen is likely to sway the outcome of a 4,765 person vote is silly on its face.

As for the argument that superdelegates are tools of the establishment, no one could have been more of an "outsider" than Sen. Barack Obama in 2008. In the U.S. Senate for only three years, he was able to beat insider Sen. Hillary Clinton while navigating the superdelegate system to his advantage. He didn't moan about the system or Clinton's early superdelegate lead. He simply did the hard work of winning primaries and the confidence of the D.C. politicians who came aboard to support his insurgent campaign.

This time around, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both had 25 years in D.C. politics to establish the relationships needed to woo and win the support of superdelegates. If one of them did it better than the other, that's part of the skillset needed to be president. Politics is about people skills. Filling stadiums means nothing if you can't manage your cabinet and run the most complex bureaucracy in the world. If one candidate is better suited to handle the job of president, superdelegates are well-situated to make that assessment.

So Democrats, stop trying to change the rules mid-game. If you don't trust your own Democratic senator or congressman to have a single delegate vote out of the 4,765 at the Convention, then you aren't a Democrat.