The Wisconsin Primaries saw big wins for barking mad Bernie Sanders in the Democrat race and for religious fruitcake/ the GOP establishment choice Ted Cruz in the Republican race. The big question as we head to the conventions is do the leaders of either party believe in Democracy?
In the Democrat race Clinton now has 1,274 pledged delegates to Sanders 1,025 but with a stack of delegate huge states coming up including New York (where Sanders grew up but Clinton merely carpetbagged a Senate seat), Pennsylvania and California ( where they are surely mad enough to vote for Sanders) it is quite conceivable that Sanders will have more elected delegates at the convention than the vile Clinton woman. He has, after all, won 7 of the last 8 caucuses/primaries and it is not as if his emails were investigated by the FBI.
But Clinton has 469 superdelagates (party officials sitting in smoke filled rooms) lined up to 31 for Sanders. So she is almost certainly a shoe-in for the nomination as things stand. But what would that say about Democracy? Could the Dems really select a candidate that Democrat voters had rejected? Could they stay credible in that situation?
The GOP is in an equal mess. The liberal media wants to write off Donald Trump after Wisconsin but the next two big primaries ( Pennsylvania and NY) are in states with far more delegates than Wisconsin and polls show The Donald streets ahead of Cruz. That may change but will liberal NY really vote for a social uber conservative from the South like Cruz and eschew one of its own sons, the socially liberal (these things are relative) Trump? I somehow doubt it.
Post Wisconsin Trump has 755 delegates, Cruz 496 and the egomaniac Governer of Ohio Kasich has 144. There are also the delegates pledged to little Rubio, who only suspended his campaign, so could come into play.
The odds are that Trump will not secure an absolute majority at the convention. He might just do so but it is looking less and less likely. But, assuming he wins NY and Pennsylvania, he will clearly have far more delegates than anyone else. If after the first round, it goes to a brokered convention the GOP leadership will almost certainly stitch it up so that everyone coalesces around the non Trump man that is Cruz. Again what message would that say about Democracy?
The millions of folks who have gone back to the GOP in the flyover states, across the Rust Belt and in the farm states as well as in the South have done so because of Trump. He will win far and away the most delegates. What message will be sent out to those folks? It will be "you can have your say but back in the Country Club the GOP leadership is saying fuck you we will choose the other guy anyway".
Both main parties may well snub democracy this summer as they put down the insurgents. As such American will be left with a choice of two candidates that their own parties did not choose but were clubbed in the party elders, two candidates BOTH funded by Wall Street, by big business, by the lobbyists by Monsanto and two candidates committed to a wars abroad neo-con agenda.
Meanwhile the economic "recovery" which has bypassed those who are not rich coast dwellers enjoying asset bubbles, will continue to see many Americans shut out of the American dream altogether and those folks are already angry but when they are shut out by the political elite that anger will grow.
If the establishment wishes to pour fuel on the fires of anger across America, its well advanced plans to screw democracy will deliver just that nightmare. The contest an angry nation demands giving it radical alternatives is insurgent vs insurgent: Trump vs Sanders. The contest it will get, whatever the voters think, may well be rather diferent.