Thursday's claims by Donna Brazile that the Democratic National Convention was in cahoots with Hillary Clinton come at a painful time for the Democratic party. Not only are the Democrats out of power in Congress and the White House, they control a paltry number of state legislatures (and 26 states are entirely GOP-controlled versus a shriveled six for Democrats) and have been coming under fire for accepting donations from monsters like Harvey Weinstein.

And now Elizabeth Warren, maybe one of the few remaining nationally popular Democrats, is siding with Brazile. On CNN, Jake Tapper asked if she agreed that the primary was rigged, and she gave an immediate "yes."

Now, Warren is first and foremost a politician and there could be a lot of ulterior motives here. She could be sharpening her populist credentials ahead of a 2020 presidential run. She could also be aiming to distance herself from "the establishment" since the DNC is pretty unpopular right now and Warren's re-election is being targeted by the Steve Bannon wing of the GOP. Regardless, while that "yes" is shocking in the gossip-y, sideshow way politics can be, what Warren said before that, about people's faith in the DNC, is also important.

When Tom Perez was first elected chair of the DNC, the very first conversation I had with him [was] to say, you have got to put together a Democratic party in which everybody can have confidence that the party is working for Democrats, rather than Democrats are working for the party [...] This is a test for Tom Perez. Either he's going to succeed by bringing Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanders' representatives into this process and they're going to say "it's fair, it works, we all believe it," or he's going to fail.

Perez doesn't seem to have the same mindset. He recently purged "Sanders wing" Democrats from long-held leadership positions in the DNC, and among their replacement he appointed Clinton campaign staffers and a number of corporate lobbyists, including a registered lobbyist for News Corp, the parent company of Fox News.

It's gonna be hard for Perez to convince progressive Democrats that they're welcome in the party when it looks like he's kicking them out. Meanwhile, if the Democratic Party is going to collapse, at least it's popcorn-worthy.

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