Bernie backers who are suing the DNC for propping up Hillary Clinton over the Vermont U.S. senator have little chance of winning their long-shot legal battle — but they’ve hit gold in the court of public opinion.

The disgruntled group of Bernie Sanders supporters and Democratic donors say the Democratic National Committee defrauded them by unfairly boosting Clinton to clear the way for her primary victory. They’ve filed their complaint in Florida, asking a judge to declare it a class-action suit.

It’s an interesting claim, but courts try not to wade too deep into so-called political questions — murky areas that judges stay away from unless there is a pressing legal controversy.

If a judge tells the DNC what rules to follow when selecting a candidate, it would set off a bipartisan firestorm.

But, while the case might be a loser, some of the rhetoric being kicked up in legal arguments makes the DNC look bad. Really bad.

For example, DNC attorney Bruce Spiva said the DNC as a self-governing political party can pick its candidates however it wants, and in doing so painted a not-so flattering picture to hammer home his point.

“We could have voluntarily decided that: Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,” he said during a hearing on a motion to dismiss last week, according to court transcripts. “That’s not the way it was done. But they could have.”

Attorneys for the peeved plaintiffs counter that the DNC violated its obligation to remain “impartial” and “neutral” when selecting a candidate. They say this duty was laid out by the DNC itself in its own set of bylaws.

But Spiva argued that the bylaw is “a discretionary rule that it didn’t need to adopt to begin with” and that a judge can’t tell the DNC how to read its own rules behind closed doors.

It’s a winning argument, but compared with the impassioned plea made by the opposition, the DNC comes off looking like the bad guy.

“What we’re talking about here is the very core of what our democracy runs on, the very basis for our democracy, which is the conduct of free and fair elections,” said Jared Beck, the attorney representing Sanders supporters, in a monologue that prompted cheers from the gallery.

Beck added later that the DNC “was not acting in accordance with its own charter and not acting in accordance with its role and, quite frankly, its duty as a custodian of this country’s democracy.”

There may be some truth there, but it’s highly unlikely a court is going to step in and tell the embattled committee how to run its business.

But that doesn’t mean those Sanders supporters can’t get in a few highly public punches before the final round in this fight is over.