We are heading towards an Idiocracy!

[Solid Snake]

The leader (Chair) of the Nevada Democratic Party, a woman named Roberta Lange who supports Hillary Clinton (as most politicians and leadership figures in the party's instrumentalities do) pushed a new set of rules through a week or so before the convention allocated delegates that drastically increased her ability to control the state convention's procedures without any checks and balances. The Chair was suddenly in charge of the convention process without a vote (whereas typically the Chair is voted in, albeit usually without controversy), the Chair was given unilateral authority to appoint all officers, the Chair appointed every committee who counted votes and allocated delegates, and -- perhaps most importantly -- the Chair was granted unilateral authority to decide motions and speakers to recognize (which basically meant that the Chair controlled all speech on the floor.)

In the end, Lange utilized her authority to strip a disproportionate number of Sanders-supporting participants from participating under ludicrous pretenses (a common suppression tactic is requiring everyone to be a registered Democrat, as Sanders' appeal has broadened the party's tent to include youth and registered independents.) Then, the ability to control the floor basically prevented Sanders supporters from complaining about issues like inadequate parking at the facilities preventing Sanders supporters from participating (as you had to arrive 'on time', apparently) and about sixty Sanders supporters being stripped of the right to participate outright -- which, again, skewed Clinton's final national delegate count from Nevada away from what the popular vote in the state should dictate the results would be.

All these moves were correctly interpreted by Sanders supporters as efforts to skew the process and suppress speech -- the idea here is Clinton wants to win more delegates than she should, sweep it under the rug, prevent Sanders' supporters from raising objections, and generally secure an easier path to the Democratic nomination (I'd imagine from Clinton's perspective, the idea here is to twist Sanders' arm into suspending his campaign earlier than he plans to, for 'party unity' reasons and whatnot. Clinton wants to move on to the general election -- and it's not like I even blame her for that inclination, but there are other ways to encourage party unity that don't involve corrupting the rules of state conventions.)

Mind you, Clinton won the state. She just ultimately didn't win by a margin proportional to the delegates actually assigned at the state convention, and once the delegates were assigned Sanders supporters weren't given much an opportunity to object 'by the rules', which led to them objecting in an unruly fashion instead, which thereafter gave the Nevada Democratic Party the opportunity to just shut the whole thing down before it got too 'violent'.

Most sane Sanders supporters -- the ones who aren't on the fringes making Sanders look bad with threats and idiotic posturing -- aren't upset that Sanders couldn't steal Nevada. They're upset because Clinton simply doesn't have to rely on stealing delegates herself to win the nomination, but she's not only stealing delegates, she's also usurping Sanders supporters right to speak out or even participate at the state conventions. It's the epitome of any Sanders' supporters fears about Hillary Clinton realized; even when she doesn't need to rely on corruption, she'll act corruptly anyway, because it appears to be all she knows. If you're a Sanders supporter because you view Sanders as fundamentally honest and Hillary as untrustworthy and too ingratiated in Washington D.C. political mudslinging -- and if you view Hillary as 'corporate' and incapable of relating to real, everyday human beings -- this doesn't reassure you that Hillary's going to change anytime between now and the general election.

Only one problem here -- Sanders supporters are playing right into what I expect is Hillary's long con game here. Namely, Hillary's deliberately goading Sanders supporters into becoming enraged, acting out on that rage, and then acting out of emotion in such a way that Hillary's surrogates can then say "Look at how unruly these kids supporting Sanders are, with their death threats and their misogyny!" It's a pretty ingenious strategy -- act just sketchy enough on arcane party convention rules and technicalities to infuriate Sanders supporters, but on such technicalities that the general public (like you, RPG) barely understand or care to research. Then when the Sanders supporters react to the injustices disproportionately by screaming bloody murder, acting like an unruly mob and (in a few extreme idiotic cases) sending out death threats to people like Lange, that's what makes headlines -- and the general public can surely understand why death threats are awful and people who make those threats should be scorned.

Hillary's succeeding in making Bernie's supporters look awful in the mainstream media through her more subtle yet ever-present brand of corrupt douchebaggery. If that's her plan as to how she hopes to unify the party around her candidacy, I'm not going to support it. That doesn't mean I support the idiot BernieBros who think death threats are a viable counteracting strategy either, it just means I'm not fond of Hillary for thinking this was a wiser course of action than just having the state conventions play out naturally, allocating delegates organically based on percentages of votes acquired and trying to appeal to Bernie supporters with honey (not vinegar.)