The Democrats designed a top-down system to provide an illusion of inclusiveness while maintaining the power of the party elite. The Democratic National Committee mandated that each state allocate its delegates proportionally among candidates who receive at least 15 percent of the votes. It also, however, designated roughly 15 percent of its total delegates as "superdelegates," party stalwarts who place a thumb on the scale in favor of establishment candidates.

This structure mimics the Democrats' approach to governance. As a coalition of the nation's super-elite, wealthy, professional classes and the nation's poorest, least educated classes, Democratic governance typically promotes elite opinion allegedly "for the good of" the poor, though with the curious side effect of perpetuating and exacerbating poverty while locking in elite power. Many, but not all, Democrats prefer to keep this elitism quiet. Cass Sunstein, former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, wrote an entire book advocating regulations that "nudge" people to alter their behavior "for their own good."