I’m hard pressed to remember how many weeks or months (or years) ago Hillary Clinton first announced her candidacy in next year’s US presidential election. Sure, she first explicitly announced her candidacy in a video not long ago. But any announcement is surely a formality at this point—that is, after the last eight years of television appearances, pundits on both sides obsessively speculating about her intentions, and her writing three separate books about herself, each around 600+ pages. Whenever the US television news media isn’t busy criticizing protesters, criticizing Obama, or criticizing each other, they’re talking about Hillary—if not the only Democrat candidate in the race, then apparently the only candidate worth discussing, since the only other one so far is a Socialist. That’s not to cast shade on Bernie Sanders. He speaks well, his ideas are popular with college students, and he will probably earn a deservedly large following with them before the primaries are over (sort of like Ron Paul did in ’12). In many respects, Bernie may even be a more qualified candidate than Clinton. For one, at least the man is consistent: He has a few core values—addressing the increasing threat of global warming, finding alternative sources of energy, and getting big money out of the American political system—and he has held firm to all of them since his inauguration as a senator in 2007. To her credit, Clinton’s positions on a variety of issues have successfully remained within the core baseline of most Democratic voters—with, of course, careful pivots and updates, such as moving from “same sex couples should not marry, but instead be allowed civil unions” (2003-2006) to “same-sex marriage should be decided by the states” (2007) and finally to “I support same-sex marriage personally and as a matter of policy” (2013) –or “changing with the times,” as her supporters call it.

But this race isn’t about consistency. This race is not about choosing the most qualified candidate. This race is neither about what stance most Americans take towards relations with Russia or China, nor is it about whether you’re pro- or anti-legalization of marijuana. And no, Fox News, it’s not about demographics, either. This race, just as every electoral race since the days of the Roman Republic, will be decided by advertising. And in that field, Clinton has already secured an enormous advantage by beginning her campaign eight years in advance. Ever since Clinton’s near-nomination in the 2008 election—when the entire Democratic Party was either hers or Obama’s—most registered Democrats had simply taken it for granted that, once Obama was finished, Clinton would follow ipso facto. Clinton must have sensed that as well, since she’s used all of the time since then for fundraising and campaigning, and now she can even add, “U. S. Secretary of State,” to her résumé. Her eight years of momentum and administrative experience makes her seem like a titan in the race next to the Republican hopefuls, of which there are too many to keep track of, dividing the Republican voter pool amongst each other. So what’s a guy like Bernie Sanders even doing in the race? The Democratic Party must sense that pitting a self-titled “Democratic Socialist” against the likes of Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, or even Marco Rubio would be insanity. He won’t just get beaten—this is not Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. This is Mayweather vs. his ex-girlfriend. Not to mention the fact that Sanders would first need to challenge head-on the massive, speeding campaign bus that is Hillary. True, he appeals to a more vocal and extreme leftist base than she does, but all that that means to Hillary is that she’ll seem more centrist by comparison after she beats him to a pulp in the caucuses. Now, hang on a minute—that wouldn’t happen to be the point of all this, would it? Democrats and Republicans today are more polarized than at any point in America’s history since the Civil War in the 1860’s. Roughly 43% of Americans identify as Democrats today, and 39% as Republicans, with 18% undecided. Since neither party can hope to win over the other party’s voters, that means that in any given election, it usually comes down to convincing those 18% on-the-fence voters—and the best way to do that is to come as close to the middle as possible, without alienating your own party’s voter base. It would be either party’s dream scenario if, hypothetically, they could all rally behind a single candidate as a champion of their side, yet somehow still make their candidate appear moderate enough to also win over the middle-of-the-road crowd. And there’s no better way to make a Democrat look moderate than to stand them up next to a socialist. Sanders’ intention to run—and win, at that—is most likely genuine. But the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, is a calculating machine with an agenda, and is not above feigning support for a dud candidate in the caucuses if it means helping another candidate in the presidential run. This is not a novel idea, either. Republicans in 2012 feigned support for people who were downright mockeries of the electoral process in their haste to legitimize Mitt Romney—people like Michelle Bachmann, who believed hurricanes were “god’s warning” to the U. S. Gov’t, and Herman Cain, who didn’t know where Syria was or why that would have been important in 2012. The caucuses and primaries aren’t democracy at work; they’re advertisements. These candidates aren’t meant to be candidates; they’re extras in a long commercial, even if they truly believe otherwise. The two parties are not interested in framing a discussion about government surveillance, or drone strikes, or the failures and excesses of American public schools, or the disproportionate number of citizens currently in prison for nonviolent crimes, or the level of poverty in American slums, or the fact that not a single person involved in perpetrating the 2008 Wall Street crash was charged with a crime (or even lost their job, for that matter). No, none of these things matter. What matters is that Hillary Clinton, champion of progress everywhere, has returned to prove her commitment to progress by taking up the sword against the right-wing forces of racism, sexism, homophobia, and climate change denial—though not until all of America watches her defeat a socialist first, so that we all get to see that middle-of-the-road side of her as well. It couldn’t be more theatrical if it were WWE wrestling. And in the end, it’s only the voters in swing states like Florida and Ohio who will decide the election and who, after six grueling months of hateful slander on TV, will be left so disgusted by both Hillary and the unlucky Republican that less than half still care enough to vote. This article was written by Michael Margaritoff. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Flickr