Despite the fact former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election nearly one year ago to date, President Donald Trump, as well as much of America, is still waiting to see her fall even further.
Controversy over allegations of Clinton rigging the presidential primary election in 2016 resurfaced after Politico published an excerpt from Donna Brazile’s forthcoming book. Brazile, the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, explains in the excerpt the DNC was reliant on money from the Clinton campaign during the primary season. She argues in exchange for financial support, the Clinton campaign was granted unusual control over important decisions made within the DNC.
As expected, people on either side of the political spectrum are enraged, saddened and frustrated at the argument Brazile has put forward. Conservatives and Trump supporters, of course, are once again shouting their rallying cry with pride, “Lock her up! Lock her up!” On the other side of things, many liberals are disappointed at the threat this allegation puts on democracy and disappointed at the unfair advantage Clinton may have had over Sen. Bernie Sanders.
If the Clinton campaign actually did rig the presidential primary (as Brazile implies), do our votes really matter at all? What is the point of a free country, where we have the right to vote, if those with the most money are ultimately able to control the outcome? These are the types of questions running through the minds of many disgruntled liberals at the moment.
The idea of a rigged primary solidifies for many the possible reality behind a corrupt government. It can easily make people question whether we really do live in a free country or if everything is actually controlled by the ones with the most money.
We agree the idea the primary could have been rigged is definitely disheartening, but we can’t say the Clinton campaign’s monopoly over the DNC is really all that unfair. Although we hate to admit it, politics in the U.S., and across the world, is mainly controlled by money.
According to The Washington Post, 91 percent of the time the political candidates who are better financed in an election will come out on top. The phenomenon that those who have the most money end up having the most control isn’t exactly new information. For some reason, we are acting like it is.
Are we expected to believe no other politician in history has used their wealth to their advantage? Are we expected to believe, had Trump been put in the same position with the Republican National Convention, he wouldn’t have acted the same exact way? Are we expected to ignore the fact male politicians have been doing things like this for years, and no one has given it a second thought? We think not.
We can agree the Clinton campaign may have had an unfair advantage over the Sanders campaign. However, we cannot say we think this advantage could have changed how the election would have panned out. At the end of the day, America voted the way it did, regardless of which candidate the DNC supported and how much money the Clinton campaign gave to the convention.
The notion the Clintons somehow rigged the campaign is, in our opinion, ridiculous. The only difference between the financial backing the Clintons provided to the DNC and the many other financial extortion cases in politics is that someone wrote a book about this, and Trump supporters want to see Clinton fall from grace with her still loyal supporters.
When it comes down to it, Clinton did everything in her power to see her campaign succeed, the same way any politician would have done. Insinuating she used her financial graces to rig the primary is, to us, an insult to the dedication she put in her campaign.
