**Previous Episode: [[BDE344]]** **Next Episode: [[BDE346]]** %%Post image thumbnail below.%%  > [!abstract|no-i] **Episode Overview** **Date Aired:** [[07-25-2024]] **Title:** Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me **Episode:** 346 **Description:** The history of the DNC primaries, or lack thereof. **Link:** https://rumble.com/v58h8qd-big-dig-energy-345-fool-me-twice-shame-on-me.html **Tags:** %%<https://historydraft.com/happened/what-happened/1-January/world>%% ## Replay %% Get embed URL then highlight and hit ALT + I%% <iframe src="https://rumble.com/embed/v565051/?pub=6eeyh" allow="fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" style="height:100%;width:100%; aspect-ratio: 16 / 9; "></iframe> <br> ## Greetings & Announcements 1. Hi! ## Segments ### The History of DNC Primaries  # 2012 Obama's 2012 campaign manager, Jim Messina, said in a 2020 interview that "every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general election." In 2012, Barack Obama (the incumbent) was due to have a primary challenger in Bernie Sanders, who wanted at least one contender to run against the incumbent. When nobody would, he expressed his intentions. Democrat operatives, including Senator Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy, intervened to stop him. [Archive](https://archive.ph/bU3jA)  > Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, have tried to downplay their past critiques of the first black president. > > For the Vermont senator, this task was always going to be a bit tricky. In 2011, as the Obama administration responded to the Tea Party's midterm triumph by pivoting toward deficit reduction and austerity, Sanders publicly argued that it "would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition." > > "There are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president — who believe that, with regard to Social Security and a number of other issues, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president; who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans, and there's deep disappointment," Sanders told progressive radio host Thom Hartman in July of that year. > > Sanders's remarks attracted some attention during his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton. But Clinton never felt threatened enough by Sanders to mount a sustained negative paid-messaging campaign against him, and the Hartman interview wasn't widely disseminated. > > But now Bernie Sanders is the Democratic frontrunner. And some Obama White House veterans have decided to call attention to the socialist senator's 2011 dissidence; specifically, they've leaked word that, in truth, Sanders did not merely call for someone to primary Obama but seriously considered doing so himself. As The Atlantic's Edward Isaac-Dovere reports: > > > Bernie Sanders got so close to running a primary challenge to President Barack Obama that Senator Harry Reid had to intervene to stop him. > > > > It took Reid two conversations over the summer of 2011 to get Sanders to scrap the idea, according to multiple people who remember the incident, which has not been previously reported. > > > > That summer, Sanders privately discussed a potential primary challenge to Obama with several people, including Patrick Leahy, his fellow Vermont senator. Leahy, alarmed, warned Jim Messina, Obama's presidential reelection-campaign manager. Obama's campaign team was "absolutely panicked" by Leahy's report, Messina told me, since "every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general [election]." > > David Plouffe, another Obama strategist, confirmed Messina's account, as did another person familiar with what happened. <p style="font-size:125%"><b><font color="#ffffff"> Every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general election. </font></b></p> --- # 2016 We know where this goes next. In 2016, before the primaries even took place, Hillary Clinton took control of DNC funds and shut Bernie out and disenfranchised many voters looking for something different out of having a say. Many people, such as myself, did not participate in the 2016 general election, and Hillary lost. [Direct Link](https://x.com/TheLeadCNN/status/926189366426431488)  [Archive.](https://archive.ph/kCZN3)  # 2020 In 2020, when the primary process began, Barack Obama moved behind the scenes to "unify the party" and encouraged candidates to drop out and endorse Joe Biden. So they did. (There are a couple of exceptions though… for example, Kamala Harris dropped out before the primary began due to her lack of any popularity whatsoever.) # 2024 So then we arrive at 2024, where Joe Biden and Kamala are incumbents. Because "every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general election" nobody really ran against Joe Biden. It was pro forma, a formality only. In fact, because they disregarded Democrat primary voters entirely, you had PACS like PrimaryPivot encouraging Democrats to vote for Nikki Haley to damage Trumps, campaign. So now, as Biden has dropped out and Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee, you have a "candidate who worked for her spot" who dropped out previously due to being unpopular, and who was VP to a man who has never really had competition for his nomination by the DNC. And now, you are expected to vote for her, and people are telling you that you voted for her too so you chose her. You have not had a say in whom the DNC picks in 16 years, at least. Should Kamala take office this fall, she will likely run for re-election in 2028, and she will likely have zero legitimate challengers, because Democrats don't do that anymore. If you go along with this now, you are simply saying you are okay with not having any say. Because it's the only way to save your Democracy. You don't have to vote for Trump. But you don't have to go along with their plan either. You can afford groceries again, and you can work to restructure your party from the ground up after you finally put an end to this absolute bastardization of the primary process, which is now old enough to drive. Think about it. That's all I ask. %%Footer Starts Here%% --- ![[Brain Icon 1.png|center]] <b><font color="#ffffff"> <center>You might not have noticed it… but your brain did.</center> </font></b> --- ### Tags ### Linked Pages & Footnotes