The Democratic Party faces a crisis of legitimacy entirely of its own making, writes onesarahjones
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images At some unspecified hour or day, the world will learn who won the Iowa Democratic caucuses. This moment, suspended between the first signs that the party’s process for reporting results had gone wrong, and final resolution, is temporary. But it is chaotic, and chaos breeds conspiracy theories.
The potential for mayhem in Iowa was evident well before Democrats arrived at their precincts. “Caucus chairs are more concerned this cycle than I’ve ever seen them. They’re very nervous,” one Iowa Democrat recently told The Atlantic. To satisfy Sanders supporters who worried the old rules unfairly handicapped their candidate, party officials drafted complicated new reforms. At the same time, they introduced a new app intended to help them report results.
Grift is its own conspiracy, in this case the disingenuous sale of hope in exchange for consulting work. Activists tend to accuse the party of other, more blatant sins, like the outright theft of votes or the rigging of primaries. What happened in Iowa is almost certainly not theft. But it’s understandable that supporters of Sanders, in particular, see malice where incompetence probably lies.
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