Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of 'Midnight in the American Empire,' How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream. @Robert_Bridge

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of 'Midnight in the American Empire,' How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream. @Robert_Bridge

For the first time in US political history, no clear winner was announced in the critical Iowa caucus amid a storm of chaos. How can the Democrats hope to lead the nation if they can’t be trusted to conduct a simple poll?

Already, February is shaping up to be the ‘month from hell’ for the Democratic Party and their hopes for beating Donald Trump in November. As Monday night grinded on into late Tuesday morning, sleep-deprived journalists from around the Midwestern state were still clueless as to the results of the hotly-anticipated caucus. Were the Democrats so consumed with impeaching Trump that they forgot how to organize a simple caucus? Finally, the Iowa Democratic Party broke the incredible news: the name of the winner would be indefinitely delayed due to “quality checks” and “inconsistencies” with the paper ballots.

Thus, for the second time in as many days, the Democrats have failed to provide the polling statistics on their favorite presidential horse. On Saturday, CNN was forced to cancel the release of a survey, conducted in cooperation with the Des Moines Register, after some vague complaints by the Buttigieg campaign were put forward.

Why should anyone believe the results they eventually release at this point? Complete unmitigated debacle — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 4, 2020

No wonder that the state of Iowa's ‘election malfunction’ has given rise to a number of conspiracy theories – no word on Russian meddling as of yet, but stay tuned! – that the Democrats had deliberately flushed the results down the memory hole because they showed Bernie Sanders, or even Tulsi Gabbard, far ahead of the pack.

US establishment fears new political voices

Had the Iowa caucuses been a ‘normal’ political contest in a normal political season – if such a thing is even possible – perhaps there would be less cause for alarm. But this has been very far from a normal campaign season. The Washington swamp remains bogged down in scandal as the Democrats continue in their increasingly unhinged efforts to impeach Donald Trump.

At the same time, both parties are watching with mounting concern as socialist rhetoric, backed up by surging membership in socialist groups, increases across the heartland. Naturally, this is of tremendous concern to the DC movers and shakers of all political stripes, and not least of all the corporate lobbyists who would stand to lose a lot of extra butter on their bread in the event America suddenly ‘goes red.’

Now for the $1 million-dollar question: would the Democrats prefer to risk looking foolish and inept by torpedoing the release of the Iowa caucus results if it meant keeping Sanders or some other possible 'troublemaker' down in the political basement? Judging by the party’s recent exploits it certainly seems plausible.

Just last week, for example, CNN announced it would host eight presidential town halls ahead of the New Hampshire Democratic primary. The list of candidates, however, glaringly failed to include Hawaii congresswoman and Iraqi war veteran Tulsi Gabbard, who is out-polling Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, and Deval Patrick in New Hampshire, according to RealClearPolitics polling. So much for democracy.

News: CNN will host eight New Hampshire town halls ahead of Feb. 11 primary:Feb. 5:Joe BidenElizabeth WarrenAndrew YangTom SteyerFeb. 6:Bernie SandersPete ButtigiegAmy KlobucharDeval Patrickhttps://t.co/semgBKL4nc — David Wright (@DavidWright_7) January 24, 2020

Gabbard, who campaigns on a non-interventionist platform, has few friends in the Democratic Party, especially after she met with Syrian President Bashar Assad back in 2017. Many people in Washington went so far as to brand Gabbard a ‘terrorist sympathizer’ after she said evidence was needed to prove that the Syrian government had resorted to the use of chemical weapons against members of the opposition. Apparently, Gabbard never got the memo that says the power-crazed superpower does not require evidence before bombing countries back to the Stone Age.

It goes without saying that the last thing the hawks in Washington want is a commander-in-chief who may do something really crazy, like scale back America’s behemoth military boot print around the planet, thereby cutting into the defense sector’s profit margin.

That leads us to Bernie Sanders. As late as 2016, the longest-serving independent in congressional history was thought to be a containable political figure among the Democrats. After all, the American people would never be ready for a socialist president, or so the argument went. In any case, if the Democrats ever felt threatened by the die-hard socialist, then they could always resort to behind-the-scene shenanigans to keep him sidelined. And that is exactly what they were accused of doing in the 2016 elections as revealed by some 20,000 Democratic Party emails released by WikiLeaks months before the 2016 presidential election.

Also on rt.com Sanders storms ahead as Democrats confront their worst nightmare – and it’s not Donald Trump

What a difference four years make. Today, Sanders, at a sprightly 78 years old, is a veritable tour de force inside of the Democratic Party, and the reason is largely because he has the backing of the radical progressive wing of the Democratic Party, known as ‘The Squad’ (made up of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; NY, Ilhan Omar; MN Ayanna Pressley; MA and Rashida Tlaib; MI) to their supporters, and the ‘Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse’ to their detractors, of which there are many.

In November, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez teamed up and rallied against big oil companies in an effort to promote the so-called “Green New Deal,” which in addition to phasing out the use of fossil fuels and thus ‘climate change,’ also calls for universal health care, increased minimum wages, and preventing monopolies. Needless to say, despite the Democrats best efforts to come across as friends of the people, they are terrified at the prospect of such a ‘socialist’ agenda seeing the light of day.

In other words, the veteran establishment Democrats – made up of the Pelosis, Schumers, Schiffs and Nadlers – are primarily committed not to the American people, but to the vast corporate lobbyists and special interest groups they represent every single day in Washington, DC. The arrival of a Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard, each with their own personal anti-establishment platforms, would shake the Beltway to its very foundations, as well as signal the ultimate death and demise of the Democratic Party from within. In that sense, people like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard are considered far more of a threat to the Democrats than even Donald J. Trump.

So, did the Democrats deliberately trash the results of the Iowa poll? Presently it is impossible to say, but one thing is for certain, there are a lot more conspiracy theorists walking around in the United States today than there were yesterday, and the Democrats only have themselves to blame for that.

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