Thread by @AlexandraErin

If you don't know the difference between what the DNC says/does and what the Iowa Democratic Party says/does, it's possible you don't know enough about what's going on to have unraveled a big conspiracy.

There's absolutely no way anyone at the DNC thinks this is a good outcome, nor was it their Zeppelin to bring in for a landing.

But the notion of an all-powerful DNC is essential to the appeal of a candidate who runs on grievances against them.

If you want to understand the process by which a candidate becomes the nominee, a good place to start is by learning how much is done at the state and local level, on a shoestring budget, by volunteers.

If you care about the process and don't want to just declare your guy best.

People are looking at an invoice that names the Iowa Democratic Party as the payer and going "Wow the DNC paid how much for this app fiasco?" or "So the DNC paid for this but Bernie is supposed to trust the results?"

Which... where do they think the money would come from?

It's not the DNC, it's the state party, but the idea that the Democrats in Iowa paying for the Democrats' infrastructure in Iowa is some big sinister tell...

I swear to God I read a tweet tonight about how "the Dems" always steal the Democratic nomination.

The caucus system is ridiculous but trying to eliminate it was seen as an anti-populist (and thus anti-Bernie) measure.

Iowa being first and being hyped up for "momentum" is also ridiculous.

And the app was clearly a mistake.

They took something that was too complicated and run by undertrained volunteers and made it more complicated, thereby exposing other issues like maybe people have been running them wrong all along.

Meanwhile the media pressed for results so they can craft their narratives...

... and the campaigns had to decide how to handle it when there's no way to definitely declare victory or loss but they have to move on to the next pressure cooker.

It's a terrible, ridiculous mess.

But far from screwing Bernie, it's better for his campaign than a clear win.

Whatever the results are announced to be, he's got his grievance. If he wins or places strongly, he overcame that dastardly DNC. If he doesn't... "the fix was in".

I've got multiple people disputing my characterisation of Bernie as running on grievances because he has a whole platform and they like it.

Cool. Fine. Great. I love his platform and I wish he knew how to run on it more.

You all knew who I was talking about when I said the candidate who runs on grievances against the DNC. I hadn't said his name yet, I don't think. You can blame it on "a small subset of his followers" but his surrogates are out pushing the message. It's part of his appeal.

Is the DNC great? No. But how much of this narrative is just people who haven't bothered to figure out how it works and who can't believe The Obvious Best Candidate doesn't win assuming b it's rigged?

Bernie lost without the superdelegates last year. They didn't screw him over.

But it's easy for people who don't care about the process but will only accept one result to take *any* aspect of that process and say it must have been rigged.

So oh no, the superdelegates. Oh no, the archaic caucus system.

The problem isn't the process, though. It's that you psyched yourself up into thinking only one outcome was possible or valid.

Pete Buttigieg is not "The DNC". The Iowa Democratic Party is not "The DNC". The individual Democratic voters who chose Hillary Clinton last time weren't "The DNC".

Doesn't matter if he's the best candidate, if he can't convince enough voters.

He didn't convince enough voters in 2016. Here I'm 2020 he appears to have shifted his focus more strongly to bringing in new voters, which for my money gives him a better chance.

But it's still not enough for him to be The Best Candidate in your head, or even on paper according to a metric you care about.

He's got to win, which means 1) going through the actual processes and 2) appealing to voters outside his base.

I trust that Bernie Sanders actually does have a good enough grasp of the process and the distinctions between state organizations, the DNC, etc., to be running a campaign.

But a lot of his supporters are at the level of The Party = DNC = Establishment = Bad.

And his campaign... as near as I can tell... doesn't mind that, finds it convenient, even.

They're going to make hay out of this horribly flawed process and I expect we will hear for months how "The DNC" [stole/tried to steal] Iowa.

I think there's reason to believe he had a strong showing tonight.

And I have a hard time believing that the fiasco with result reporting will do anything but help him.

No one else is getting a clear narrative out tonight. Pete tried it, badly.

The only really coherent story on the ground is that the DNC screwed over Bernie again. It's not true. But it's self-consistent and believable, to the people it needs to inspire.