Mollie Hemingway at TheFederalist offers an interesting point at 27:00 in this podcast. She’s discussing the low threshold for Repoof candidates, versus the absolute refusal of all debates and primaries by D. She thinks this gives an advantage to R, since people who want to see a functional “democracy” are seeing it on the R side, not the D side.
This was certainly true in 2016 when Bernie was crassly and openly cheated out of victory in caucuses and primaries. Bernie could have capitalized on this obvious cheating by going independent, but he didn’t. He submitted meekly, thus destroying his role. His character was the grouchy old working-class Jewish union leader. I liked and respected that character. When he put down the picket sign and supported the boss for no reward and no concessions, I stopped liking him.
I might add that people who see politics as pure entertainment are getting more entertainment on the R side. Vivek and Christie and Haley are interesting and varied characters, and of course Trump IS a professional entertainer as well as a vicious gangster. The D side is turning down all auditions and stopping all shows.
Polistra's Mill 