a lot of dems like to pretend the DNC primaries are some sort of democratic filtering process, instead of this opaque ratfuck where a handful of party bosses atop political machines in gerrymandered-safe districts horse trade and purposely make mass participation difficult with various mechanisms to disenfranchise poors, dilute or diffuse popular candidates.

i dunno if you've seen that rhetorical move dems make now where if someone refers to one of the party as "democrat" they say it's a republican slur, that their party is "democratic" and should be referred to as such. lmao. meanwhile, the republican party is more democratic in its presidential primary process than the DNC. notice how the GOP couldn't block their populist insurgent candidate, but in 2016 bernie had an insurmountable "superdelegate problem" where a bunch of party insiders would get to completely overrule the actually elected delegates. or when the Nevada primary in 2016 was abruptly ended by a controversial "voice vote" with the party chair claiming hilary won to a roomful of boos, gaveling the session closed over objections, and having the police clear out the room. or the whole "shadow app" thing in 2020 for iowa where Mayo Pete claimed victory with <2% of the votes in and winning some statistically impossible number of coin tosses... because somehow dozens of coin tosses are part of the democratic process for democrats in iowa? meanwhile, bernie still actually won iowa, then new hampshire, then nevada. so the party called in jim clyburn to crank his red state machine for biden, summoned obama to do a full court press, started ratfucking the mail-in primary voting options for an emerging covid, and had Snake Warren (who lost her own home state) stay in while everyone else dropped to bleed votes off bernie and elevate biden.

when these clowns insist that we need to vote for their shitheel to save democracy, they can be disregarded because the US presidential election has never been subjected to the forces of democracy, quite often due to the intervention of the DNC. what they want you to protect are their illusions and rituals.