By flouting the popular vote in favor of elitist superdelegates, candidate Clinton ignores the new realities of leadership in the 21st century
The original Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley, met her downfall when she disdainfully observed that paying taxes was for "the little people." Make way for the new Queen of Mean, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). This time it's not about taxes, but about the very essence of democracy: voting.
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O.K., I get it. Despite all these heady months of spirited, hopeful, and, yes, joyful participation in caucuses and primaries, it's alright that our votes are ignored because we are simply not in the loop. If the superdelegates override the popular will, it means we were just playing "democracy"—like playing "dress-up" or "doctor." When it comes to the serious work of choosing the Democratic nominee, the little people must step aside and let the insiders do what we would have done if only we had known better. We told ourselves our voices mattered. What were we thinking?
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Senator Clinton's endorsement of the elite's right to override the people's vote puts her smack in the middle of the 20th century and its dominant leadership model. That model was invented to concentrate and manage complexity at the top, when most of the rank and file was uneducated and considered ill-equipped for meaningful participation. Large centralized hierarchies, including political parties, unions, corporations, and government bureaucracies, were its hallmark. Information stayed at the top. Only commands flowed down.
This kind of leadership found support in the notion of "false consciousness" that originated in the philosophical writings of Marx and Engels. They thought the working class was incapable of perceiving the nature of its own oppression. Any contentment a worker felt was therefore an illusion brought on by an inability to grasp economic reality.
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