“For a party that has spent four years insisting that removing Trump from power is an absolute prerequisite to saving the republic and all things decent in the world, it is bizarre, to put it mildly, to watch them embark upon the one strategy that is most likely to most fracture their own party and drive huge numbers of voters away from their nominee.”

The Democratic establishment’s strategy to thwart Bernie Sanders’ surging candidacy through a brokered convention – in which party elites bypass the candidate with the most votes and delegates in order to handpick an alternative – will alienate Sanders’ grassroots movement and all but guarantee Trump’s reelection, journalist Glenn Greenwald argued in an article with the Intercept on Tuesday

Greenwald backs his claim by recalling the Democratic primary of 1968, which saw anti-establishment, anti-war candidate Sen. Eugene McCarthy subverted by party officials despite popular grassroots support and replaced with Hubert Humphrey, the establishment-backed former Vice President of Lyndon B. Johnson. Humphrey was then defeated by Richard Nixon in a landslide as lingering resentments in the party prevented its unification.

The journalist argues a similar result will befall the party in 2020 if Joe Biden is anointed by party bosses in a brokered convention. Biden has said he will continue to contest the Democratic nomination if Bernie leads in delegates but does not have a majority. In the Las Vegas debate last month, Sanders was the only contestant to say that the candidate with the most votes should be the party’s nominee, while Biden and other hopefuls endorsed a prolonged “process,” which would allow super-delegates to influence the contest in the second ballot.

Establishment Plan To Stop Bernie

Beyond the potential brokered convention, Greenwald notes the tremendous efforts of the Democratic establishment to suppress Sanders’ campaign, from stuffing the DNC nominating committee with anti-Sanders corporate lobbyists, to using a shady, untested app developed by DNC insiders to cast the Iowa Caucus into chaos, to deliberately inaccurate coverage from the corporate media (notably, 94% of donations by executives and vice presidents at MSNBC’s owner company, Comcast, have gone to Joe Biden).

On Monday, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar suddenly dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden alongside a slew of establishment Democrats in what critics widely perceived as a calculated effort to weaken front runner Bernie Sanders before Super Tuesday.

Yeah, I found it hard to believe that Harry Reid, Susan Rice, Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar, Tammy Duckworth, and Beto O’Rourke all just sporadically decided on the exact same day that Joe Biden was a fantastic candidate https://t.co/JyLEnz8Si8

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 3, 2020

Independent journalist Michael Tracey noted the strange circumstances surrounding Buttigieg’s withdrawal in an article on Monday:

“Take yesterday, for instance. Pete Buttigieg meets for breakfast with 95-year-old Jimmy Carter (?), ensures the visit is well-publicized, then heads home to South Bend and pulls the rug out from under his campaign. Wait, what? Is this the same Pete Buttigieg whose aides just a few days earlier released an elaborate memo detailing his surefire path to a formidable delegate acquisition? Yet suddenly his Super Tuesday plans are scrapped, and the thousands of early votes already cast for him in California and elsewhere are effectively nullified.”

Dems love to mock conservatives as mindless cultists who do what they’re told.

But in 2016, the GOP establishment couldn’t control their party or voters when trying to stop Trump.

Dems – soon as they’re told – snap into line with stunning discipline & obedience to stop Sanders pic.twitter.com/wqrJUPSLYN

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 3, 2020

Here’s a return to the past, Beto.

You said: “Joe Biden cannot be who we are going forward. We’ve got to be bigger, we’ve got to bolder. We have to set a much higher mark.”

So what changed between the past and now, @BetoORourke that you’ve endorsed @JoeBiden? https://t.co/JvxPXynSpJ

— Sunrise Movement ? (@sunrisemvmt) March 3, 2020

Independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone views the perfectly-timed coalescing of establishment figures around Biden, as well as recent, unsubstantiated reports that Russia supports Sanders, as part of a coordinated plot previously reported by journalist Ruth Ann Oskolkoff:

“On January 20, 2020 at 8:20 p.m. PDT I received a communication from a reliable source,” Oskolkoff wrote. “This person had interactions earlier that evening with high level party members and associates of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) who said that they have now selected Biden as the Democratic Party nominee, with Warren as the VP. They also said the plan is to smear Bernie as a Russian asset.”

Despite early primary losses, the loss of a viable path to nomination, and newfound moderate unity, Sen. Warren has refused to counter Klobuchar and Buttigieg’s move by dropping out and endorsing her supposed ally and front runner Bernie Sanders.

Is Biden Electable?

Critics argue that Biden’s history of unpopular positions like supporting the Iraq War, NAFTA, pro-creditor bankruptcy reform, social security cuts, and mass incarceration-causing crime legislation make him easy to paint as a Washington insider at a time of widespread anti-establishment sentiment. Further, Greenwald points to Biden’s cognitive decline and numerous gaffes as evidence that Trump would bully and defeat him in a general election.

What’s the Democrats’ posture toward Biden’s, um, cognitive issues?

Are they in denial about how enduringly severe it is? Do they hope they’ll be a cure in time for the fall? Or do they think voters won’t care as they see more and more of this?https://t.co/kLRZCxMBKo

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 3, 2020

WOW! Sleepy Joe doesn’t know where he is, or what he’s doing. Honestly, I don’t think he even knows what office he’s running for! pic.twitter.com/454v9GFpgF

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2020

Meanwhile, Sanders has consistently led Trump in national and battleground state polls, leading critics to believe that electability is not the real reason the Democratic Establishment is so staunchly opposed to his nomination.

As reported by Sludge, the DNC is controlled by corporate lobbyists, as two-thirds of DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee members are corporate lobbyists or corporate consultants. Greenwald and Sanders campaign adviser David Sirota argue that party insiders are more concerned with maintaining their money and power than they are with defeating Trump.

I’m not moving to DC no matter what, so I’ll speak a truth that’s not allowed to be said:

Joe Biden is a full-employment program for the Beltway Democratic establishment. He makes sure that for them, nothing would fundamentally change. That’s a huge part of why they support him.

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) March 3, 2020

“Those are not the actions of a party that regards removing Trump from power as its overarching priority,” wrote Greenwald. “Those are, instead, the actions of party establishment apparatchiks who far prefer to lose to Trump and endure four more years of his presidency than lose their monopoly over the apparatus of an out-of-power Democratic Party and all the consulting contracts, funding opportunities, and lobbyist openings that go along with it.”