Take a breath: We’ve finally completed both major political parties’ conventions for this election cycle. With Hillary Clinton, we have our first woman presidential nominee, and with Donald Trump — well, let’s not even go there. Regardless, the world isn’t on fire — though sadly my butt is, but that can be fixed with a cream.
In past weeks, we have also learned that many major players in the Democratic National Committee colluded to secure Clinton’s nomination. The DNC email hack revealed that some in the party wanted to attack Sen. Bernie Sanders’ religion.
It should go without saying that the hack is particularly foul, but let me suggest this: Out of all the things we need to change in our political system, convention reform shouldn’t be a priority. The DNC hack just exposed the reality of American politics, and unfortunately, corruption and greed have always been endemic in the body politic.
Organizations have biases. You can’t change our human proclivity to gossip and pick sides.
That’s fine, because as we’ve seen in the past year, being the party favorite doesn’t guarantee anyone a nomination. Sanders’ camp has said they don’t believe he was cheated out of the nomination due to the DNC’s biases. If anything, Bernie’s headway should be viewed as a grand step forward for progressives, proof that the party isn’t an immutable force.
The corruption is there, but it can be defeated. Hillary won as fair as anyone has ever won a nomination before. It’s time to move on, learn from what happened, and make sure we don’t put a pathological liar with zero experience holding office in the White House.
