What if Sanders supporters see a crooked Clinton?
Hillary Clinton cares only about power, and she will do anything for power's sake. Most of America already knew that ugly fact, but now, perhaps, the leftists so in love with Bernie Sanders will begin to see this creepy crone as her true self: an amoral monster.
The Clintons cheat. Sanders supporters seem to suspect that Clinton has cheated Sanders out of a victory in Iowa.
Two stories of delegate fraud by Clinton supporters against Sanders have emerged in Iowa Precinct 43 and then in Ames District 1-3. Six times, coin tosses decided how deadlocked precincts would go, and – surprise! – Hillary won all six of the coin tosses. Given the microscopic lead Clinton had in the Iowa caucus of 49.9% for Clinton and 49.6% for Sanders, any fraud could have cost Sanders a victory, for which his supporters had campaigned so hard.
So all those voters who drove long hours in Iowa winter nights to hear Sanders speak might have been cheated by corrupt party hacks controlled by the Clinton machine.
What will happen if Sanders really feels that he was cheated out of victory? What will happen if the enthusiastic supporters and volunteers for Sanders begin to believe, and to tell Sanders directly, that the Clinton machine is lying and cheating its way through the nomination battle?
Bernie Sanders, so far, has scrupulously avoided challenging Hillary on her honesty, but it is only his personal decision to maintain this position that protects Clinton. Sanders, not actually a Democrat, has gone to great lengths to remain loyal to that political party he caucuses with in the Senate, although he clearly has no duty to act that way. Sanders owes the Democratic Party nothing. If Sanders or his supporters begin to directly attack the honesty and integrity of Hillary Clinton, then she could face the convergence from three different directions of such attacks.
The more the Republican nomination winnows out candidates, the more Republicans will focus their attacks on Hillary as a venal and corrupt politician who can be trusted with nothing. Candidates have already begun to shift fire from fellow Republicans to Hillary, who is anathema to conservatives.
The field for these Republican attacks is vast. Remember: Hillary has never run in a national campaign against Republicans before, and she has run only in very safe races in general, like as a senator from New York or in Democrat primaries. She has not even begun to feel the full fury of a Republican campaign in a general election.
What if, for example, if a Republican candidate asked Hillary if she believed Juanita Broaddrick? Wouldn't Hillary say something obviously false – for example, that she had never heard the allegation that her husband is a brutal rapist? What if family members of the Americans slain in Benghazi begin to tell the nation in political ads that Hillary lied to them?
People like Hillary (that is to say, sociopaths) lie all the time. They compound their lies with more lies. Hillary and her husband, so far, have gotten away with lies because they reflectively blame Republicans or a "vast right wing conspiracy." That argument fails if Sanders supporters also begin to tell America that Hillary is dishonest.
Worse will follow if the Obama FBI recommends criminal indictments against Hillary or Huma Abedin or other flacks regarding the use of private email servers for highly secret government communications. Hillary's lying about everything on that subject – a completely different matter from enabling the nastiness of her husband – will be yet a third serious attack on the honesty of Clinton, this time from Obama's Justice Department.
These will be completely separate stories on different subjects, with the only common connection being that Hillary is a liar and a crook. If Hillary responds, as she doubtless would, that the Obama FBI and the socialist Senator Sanders are both toys of the RNC, then a fourth story could arise: Hillary is lying to the American people about who is challenging her ethics.
The fallout could be devastating. If Hillary hobbles to the nomination despite the FBI's recommendation to prosecute her, then millions of independent voters inclined to Hillary may stay home, and if Sanders's supporters feel defrauded of the fruits of their labor for Sanders, then millions of those voters may stay home, too. Not only would this cost Hillary the White House, but it could produce just the sort of electoral landslide in political races down the ballot that could lead to a true conservative political revolution.