Original sin watch: Sanders supporter complains to Josh!

MONDAY, MAY 2, 2016

Those People are dumb, genius says: Josh Marshall has posted an email from a Sanders supporter who feels the game has been rigged against Sanders. This is his or her first example:

EMAILER (5/2/16): I know you’re not in love with Hillary, I’ve read your site daily since you started and I know you have deep reservations about Hilary, so I’m not coming from a place of saying you’re in the tank for her. But I do think you ignore some huge factors. One is the degree to which all those super delegates picking Hillary early on and thereby making her the front runner in the media, polls, etc. served as a self fulfilling prophecy. As you well know people want to vote for a winner. The Super Delegates allowed Hilary to jump out to a huge early lead which in turn supported numerous media outlets calling the Sanders campaign “insurgent,” “long shot,” etc. So to a degree all of these Super Delegates lining up for Hilary created a self fulfilling prophecy.

Whatever you think of the super-delegate system, that seems pretty silly. Here's why:

Sanders was called a "long shot" last summer because he was a long shot. "He started at three percent," Jane Sanders accurately said on last Thursday's Maddow Show. "And he's now at 49 percent, 50 percent, 51 percent in the polls. "So we've gone...Bernie has gone up 47 points since April last year in one year."

When you're starting at three percent, you are, in fact, a long shot! Sanders has made an incredible run. But he started as a very long shot. The super-delegates had little to do with that initial obvious fact.

It was the emailer's second point which made our analysts break out in hives and emit a loud piteous wail. In this, you see the original sin of our own self-impressed tribe:

EMAILER (continuing directly): There are other aspects of the game being “rigged” aside from the caucus system. For example, our educational systems in this country are so poor relative to other economically wealthy countries. We spend more per student than all but 4 small countries but generally rank in about 30th place for results. I believe many American voters lack even a rudimentary understanding of our system of government. My favorite example like yours is: “Keep government out of my Medicare!” Do you still have that photo?

In statements like this, our progressive tribe's hubris really starts to show. This is why we say that:

The emailer complains that the game was rigged against Sanders because our educational system is so bad! He or she then offers a stereotypical example of the Dumb Stupid Brainwashed Tea Party Rube, even as he or she repeats a bogus, cherry-picked claim about how bad our public schools are compared to schools in other nations.

In other words, this fiery progressive recites a piece of standard cant he himself has swallowed, even as he complains about how dumb The Others are. As he continues, he offers this:

EMAILER (continuing directly): Other examples: a widespread belief among Republican voters that the PBS television budget accounts for more than 50% of US Government spending.

Is there "a widespread belief among Republican voters that the PBS television budget accounts for more than 50% of US government spending?" We'd never heard that claim before, so we engaged the Google.

In 2012, CNN polled that very question. According to CNN's data, six percent of all respondents copped to that absurd idea, but only four percent of Republican respondents signed on to that claim. Warning to our cocksure progressive—at least in that CNN survey, Democrats may have been a little bit daffier on that matter than Republicans were.

(Apparently due to sample size, CNN didn't come up with a number for Democrats.)

Over here in our own flawless tribe, we've long been convinced of our own brilliance and goodness. The least humane among us have always felt sure of such things, ever since we alleged humans first crawled from the swamp.

The Others are stupid, inhuman and bad! It's the oldest known human belief, the one which leads to the wars.

We're sure the emailer is a good person. He or she ought to consider getting over him or herself. He or she ought to consider the possibility that all wisdom doesn't exist Over Here, with all the dumbness Over There among Those People, The Others.

In closing, let's recall that other key point. We liberals can swallow cant from elites and from our tribal authority figures, just the way The Others do.

In fact, it happens all the time. The emailer seemed to prove it.

WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT: Still a high-ranking favorite at Salon, even two days after posting:

We must shame dumb Trump fans: The white working class are not victims
It's not smug liberalism to point out Trump backers are low-educated. What's dangerous is to sympathize with them
DAVID MASCIOTRA
SATURDAY, APR 30, 2016 09:29 AM EDT

According to the photo Salon has chosen, they aren't just dumb, they're fat.