Clinton cronies smear the voters she’ll need

As Hillary Clinton declares that “there is no way I won’t be” the Democratic presidential nominee, her establishment cronies continue to try to pressure Bernie Sanders out of the race. The latest gambit casts his supporters as violent thugs.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told MSNBC that she found the behavior of Sanders’ supporters, upset over what they saw as procedural shenanigans at the recent Nevada convention, “seriously disturbing” and chided them for “throwing chairs” and “engaging in violence.”

There’s a slight problem with this claim: It never happened.

Snopes. com and NPR’s ombudsman both concluded that there is no evidence a single chair was thrown at the convention meeting. It appears a person lifted a chair and put it back down. NPR’s ombudsman said use of the word “violence” by her organization was inappropriate, as no violence seems to have occurred.

It’s bad enough for pundits and Clinton supporters to repeat explosive claims about the convention, but when the head of the DNC attempts to smear primary voters with false accusations, she has officially crossed the line.

The DNC chief’s thumb on the scales in favor of Clinton — most notably through apparently scheduling debates to draw the least number of viewers — has earned her the ire of Sanders, who has come out in support of Wasserman Schultz’s primary opponent and has said that if he were president, she would not be reappointed to her DNC position.

Even Wasserman Schultz’s claims of threatening phone calls to Nevada Democratic Chair Roberta Lange are overblown. Veteran Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston posted what was described as a “sample of voicemails” left for Lange. Of the 11 call transcripts posted, only one came close to threatening violence, with a caller saying, “I hope you burn for this.” The rest sounded like a day on my Twitter feed. Unpleasant and vile, yes. But hardly what one would call violence.

Clinton booster Sen. Barbara Boxer told CNN, “I was on the stage and people were 6 feet away from me, and if I didn’t have a lot of security, I don’t know what would have happened.” The senator described the unwashed masses getting within 6 feet of her and her security team at a public event as “scary” and “frightening.” A more accurate rendering of the event would be to say that people were very angry. Why wouldn’t they be?

They’ve watched as Democratic mandarins tell them who the nominee is going to be. Many superdelegates have thrown their support behind Clinton before a single vote has been cast at July’s Democratic National Convention, and some have made clear they wouldn’t change their vote even if their state went for Sanders.

This has happened despite the fact that 57% of Democratic and Democratic- leaning voters say Sanders should stay in the race through the convention. Among Sanders’ supporters, it’s 89%.

The only surprise here is that there haven’t been more uprisings as we saw in Nevada. Yet.