Back in July, I came across a piece by a Medium Clintonite named Hillary Schwartz, who, at the time, was angry that the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate was making a public show of taking responsibility for last year’s electoral loss instead of going the usual “blame everyone but Clinton” route. I authored a rejoinder. Now, she back with another morally-confused mess of an article, “The Fix Is In… Against Hillary Voters.” My response:

Well, you’ve made a real mess of just about everything here. I’m not going to go through all of it but some of it is just too much.

You say Donna Brazile and Elizabeth Warren “insinuate that the Democratic primary process was rigged” and “level… accusations” of same, so let’s clear up something right up front: Hillary Clinton used the DNC’s financial woes to leverage what amounted to a takeover of that org at a time when it was charged with overseeing a presidential primary/caucus process. This isn’t some “insinuation.” It isn’t some “accusation.” It is an on-the-record, nowhere-to-run-or-hide fact. It happened and it was completely inappropriate, which is why it was kept secret for all this time. The DNC worked on behalf of the Clinton campaign and against the Sanders campaign, all the while professing neutrality in that race — a neutrality that is written into the DNC bylaws themselves. Everyone assumed the DNC’s appalling behavior — from the debate schedule fiasco to the constant efforts to smear Sanders and his supporters, the business about the data breach, the false accusation of a chair-throwing riot by Berniecrats in Nevada, the insistence Sanders didn’t condemn “violence” and all the rest— was a consequence of the DNC, as an independent entity, improperly favoring Clinton over Sanders but it turns out it was even worse; the DNC was, through all of that, merely a bought-and-paid-for adjunct of the Clinton campaign and had been all along. Many have characterized this as “rigging” and others have insisted that isn’t an appropriate word for it — you don’t address these facts or even acknowledge their existence while trying to wave away the entire matter— but that’s a largely meaningless argument over semantics; there’s no question all of that bad behavior by the DNC had a major impact on the course of the entire Democratic process, was intended to have that effect and it was all Clinton. And the Clintonite reaction when that became known was the same as it always is: to lie, to lie again then to lie some more, to slander Brazile, to insist Sanders had exactly the same deal with the DNC, to say these extraordinary powers granted Clinton in her agreement with the DNC were only to affect the general election and a half-dozen others that have made the rounds.

Clinton and her inner circle — the people who behave in this manner — are very bad people. You wave Trump as a voodoo fetish but if you don’t like it that Trump is using corrupt Democrats against the larger party, then stop supporting corrupt Democrats. If you back these animals, it doesn’t make you “illegitimate”; it makes you really stupid.

More than that, the Clinton cult is just that, a personality cult, and when it comes to defending the Cult Queen, the cultists have shown themselves willing to abandon and travesty every progressive principle they profess. They react with great, self-righteous fury at Republican efforts to game the system for that party’s advantage then write absolutely unconscionable rationalizations for Clinton and the DNC doing the same thing. Like this:

“The DNC did favor Clinton. But Sanders was running against the establishment, against the Democratic Party. And he got a lot of mileage out of that. How can you run against the Party and simultaneously cry victim when the Party is understandably wary of you? You can’t have it both ways. In other words, the dislike between Sanders and the Democratic Party was not one-sided; it was mutual. And if the DNC did push Hillary, Russian propaganda boosted Sanders. So he had the much bigger advantage.”

There’s been no real evidence of this “Russian propaganda” business but in your hands, it not only becomes true but also something that had a major impact then something that had much more impact than the DNC/Clinton corruption, and you aren’t even familiar with the allegations on which you’re basing all of this — the alleged Russian activity was centered on the general election, not the primaries, and Sanders was already out of the race. You try to craft some fake impression of a double-standard to use as a cudgel against Sanders and it never, for so much as a moment, occurs to you as you’re doing so that this behavior — the corrupt behavior you’re trying to rationalize — proves Sanders was right about the party Establishment all along (in his criticism of it that you also try to dismiss). It’s far worse than he’d suggested. And, of course, if, like most Democrats, you dislike Republican efforts to game the system to their advantage, you’re the one employing the double-standard. You’re already very down on Russian manipulation that is merely alleged but give Clinton’s one-the-record manipulation a pass.

Following the cult’s m.o., there next comes the personal smearing of Brazile:

“There are contradictions in Brazile’s claims. In her book, she asserts that the DNC should not have preference for any candidate. She also claims that she thought of pushing Clinton out as the nominee in favor of Joe Biden. So the DNC should not favor a nominee, but she thinks she as interim DNC Chair can personally select one? This makes no sense.”

Brazile’s comments regarding replacing Clinton had to do with a period when all kinds of rumors were circulating about the candidate’s alleged poor health, rumors that, by then, were being further stoked by Trump and then suddenly, Clinton collapsed at a public event. It turned out Clinton had pneumonia and had spent days lying in order to cover up that fact. In the midst of all this, Brazile, facing the prospect of a candidate who was lying and may not actually be able to continue on, says she considered replacing Clinton using a process written into the DNC’s charter. She had no power to “personally” replace Clinton and never claimed to have — that’s a smear put out by the Clinton camp. Brazile was dong her job.

This is particularly despicable:

“It seems like the Democratic Party leadership feels free to disrespect Hillary voters and the Democratic base because they know we will always be there. They can count on us too much, so what’s the harm in throwing us under the bus to appease Bernie supporters, who they can’t rely on? I wound up volunteering for the Virginia Governor’s race, even though at times I was thinking, why bother? Why should I show up when the Democratic leadership hates me?”

Yes, the party abandoned its own rules to give your candidate every dirty advantage but it’s you, the Clinton supporters — not the Sanders supporters who were cheated at every turn — who are so terribly persecuted and put upon.

Or maybe not.

— j.