What Happens in Vegas Doesn't Stay in Vegas

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

“I’m reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940, and the Gen. Renault calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can it be? You got the greatest army in Europe. How could it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’ So I had that suppressed feeling.” - Chris Matthews, 2/22/20

After kinking the delegate and voter hose on him in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada was won by Bernie Sanders. That would be the same Nevada that, four years ago, pulled a Brock Turner on Bernie and literally and publicly stole his delegates from him. The same Nevada in which John Ralston spread the lie that got him fired that Bernie delegates were throwing chairs. The same Nevada in which Barbara Boxer gave Bernie Bros the finger as she stormed out.

    Yes, that Nevada, the Mafia-midwifed desert wasteland where millions flock every year to seek their fortunes and few succeed, provided they don't win too big or often.

     For once, the polls taken weeks ago showing Bernie winning Nevada on a blue wave of minority support were uncannily accurate. With just 60% of precincts reporting in (The Nevada Democratic Party, surprise, surprise, isn't using the same failed Shadow app that was used in Iowa), Bernie now enjoys a 25.4% lead over Joe Biden. Pete Buttigieg is, naturally, calling on the state's Democratic officials to investigate "irregularities" in the results despite him trailing Bernie at a distant third by over 30%.

    Nevada was also the first minority-majority state to weigh in during the presidential election season. With Sanders polling strongly with both minorities and the large food service unions plus with a record-setting 70,000 early votes, it's no surprise that Bernie won so decisively. The Nevada caucus also put the lie to the same anti-Sanders talking points:

     Bernie's only popular among white male "Bernie Bros", which is why he won lily white Iowa and New Hampshire. "Bernie Bros" harassed union officials. And it also put the lie to the right wing obsession with stopping early voting at all costs. Bernie's so far won the first 10 delegates up for grabs and he did it through mass appeal across a broad multi cultural coalition.

    That, however, didn't stop the increasingly right wing MSNBC from bellyaching, doom-saying and downplaying the caucus results that, even with just 4% of the precincts reporting, showed Bernie was going to win the state in a landslide. Fox "News", of all places, which has actually been more fair and factual about Bernie's campaign than the sons and daughters of Phil Griffin, declared Sanders the winner almost immediately.

     Chris Matthews, aka Tweetie, has cold sweats about a Sanders presidency and proved it last night when he compared Sanders, a Jewish presidential candidate who lost his family to the Holocaust, to the Nazis crossing the Maginot Line and invading France from the north. This was the same guy who was raving on national TV about Socialist public executions in Central Park after the New Hampshire Democratic debate and implied this is what a Bernie presidency would bring. Joy Reid was hardly more celebratory. She said that Bernie's supporters in Nevada were driven by their hunger and anger and concluded, "Democrats need to sober up and figure out what the hell they're going to do about that."

     Well, they could get behind the only guy who genuinely cares about their economic plight and has advanced policy proposals for addressing those same issues. But this is the neoliberal Democratic Party we're talking about, a political machine that would make Boss Tweed weep with envy.

Tuesday at Bernie's

Every time, it seems, that Chris Matthews talks about Bernie Sanders, a little bit of him painfully withers and dies. But at least Tweetie can take comfort that he wasn't alone. The rest of MSNBC was thisclose to committing ritual seppukku on live national TV. 

    Claire McCaskill was officially put on suicide watch as the caucus results streamed in. Reliable Clinton stooge James Carville, suddenly relevant again and channeling his right wing wife Mary Matelin, was on the sound stage literally calling Bernie voters "stupid" and that the caucus results were "going very well for Putin."

    Here's what's getting the MSNBC multimillionaires whose taxes would go up under a Sanders administration up in arms- The fact that Bernie got more votes than his top three closest rivals combined. So what else is there for the sour-pussed talking heads when downplaying or ignoring the election results isn't an option but to attack Sanders' popularity? Which is the same exact tactic the McCain campaign used against Barack Obama in 2008.

     And it's not getting any better for the DNC's talking heads or Bernie's Democratic rivals, either (or Trump). Bernie's already polled as having a huge lead in the next primary state, South Carolina. Without Hillary Clinton and her inexplicable Svengali effect over an electorate that she'd once called "super predators", Bernie's cleaning up among African American voters. Buttigieg is notoriously weak in that demographic and Biden's fading faster than his own hair.

   Then there's South Carolina's reverse migration accounting for over one million new African American voter registrations this year alone. South Carolina's the sixth fastest-growing state by population and the reverse migration from northern cities to African American ancestral roots in the south has much to do with it.

   And the news just keeps on getting better for Sanders. The Wisconsin State Journal reluctantly reported that Bernie has a better than 15 point lead over Biden in advance of their own primary on April 7th.  And a wider-reaching report in Newsweek states that Sanders is leading in all 10 states that were polled. 

    With this kind of momentum building, it's easy to envision Bernie sweeping all 14 states on March 3rd, Super Tuesday. So don't be surprised when you hear more stories about MSNBC or CNN once again colluding with party officials to feed in advance questions to debates they happen to be moderating to one or another candidate who isn't an old Democratic Socialist Jew from Brooklyn. The self-interested corporate mainstream media will never get over the Sanders momentum and viability no matter what. And I can perfectly see them supporting Trump over Bernie when and if he gets the nomination.

Addendum, 7:35 PM:

      Make it 26.7% with 72% reporting.