Let the woman win (even if she didnt earn it): Salon's demand for Bernie Sanders

So yesterday, before todays elections in 6 states, Salon ran the following headline:

Why can’t Sanders admit defeat? He’s looking more and more foolish as he denies Hillary’s victory

the subheadline was:

Sanders has lost the primary on every level, making his insistence that he should win anyway subtly sexist.

So there argument  is sanders is a sexist cause he cant admit he lost to a women....now how do they go about proving that?

Well they start off somewhat solid

"Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton won a couple more primary races — in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — expanding her already substantial lead over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary contest. But Sanders refuses to give up the ghost, insinuating that he must, on some level, be the real winner and that this fight has to be taken to the convention so he can snatch the prize he clearly believes belongs to him, even as the voters continue disagreeing."

Now this IS true, Clinton DID win those races, and did expand her lead over sanders. In fact as of Tuesday morning shes leading him by 291 actual delegates. Keep in mind of the 6 states voting tonight 1 of them is worth 475 delegates.

So clearly Bernie is being unreasonable by not just handing Clinton the election..... and insisting its a close election...as the math shows it is.

“Mr. Sanders,” the New York Times reports, “insists that the convention will be contested because he is still lobbying superdelegates — party officials and state leaders who cast their final votes at the convention — to withdraw support from Mrs. Clinton and back him instead.

"It is extremely unlikely that Secretary Clinton will have the requisite number of pledged delegates to claim victory on Tuesday night,” Sanders said during a news conference Saturday. “Now, I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it’s all going to be over on Tuesday night. I have reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate.”

Too be fair, this is also true. And perfectly legal, because super delegates can change their support right up until they cast their votes at the convention....this is also exactly how Obama beat Clinton last time.

So again......this would all seem to suggest, mathematically Sanders is RIGHT.....but again remember Salon's premise here: By not giving the race to a woman he's being sexist.....even though they just started off by proving why he SHOULDNT just hand the race over to Clinton.

In fact the only thing wrong here is that the media didnt wait for the New Jersey results to come in, they randomly decided yesterday hours after this was written, on a day with no elections, that Hillary Clinton had become the official winner and the race was over...because reasons (none of which Im sure had anything to do with trying to trick people into not voting today or anything.....)

"It’s a frustrating argument, because Sanders spent most of the campaign portraying superdelegates as some kind of corrupt elites there to deprive the popular winner of the vote. But now that Clinton is the clear winner of the popular vote, suddenly the superdelegates are legitimate again.

Calvinball antics during elections are hardly anything new — remember “hanging chads”? — but even by those standards, this is headache-inducing pretzel logic. It’s clear the only principle being employed by the Sanders camp is that the only rules that are legitimate are the ones that lead to his win."

Now I'll grant them the hypocrisy argument.....at least until they brought up hanging chads. This isnt "pretzel logic". Super delegates can change their support up until they vote at the convention......that EXACTLY what the rules say. 

I realize this rule is problimatic for Ms. Clinton....once again its the same rule that cost her the race last time.....but that dosnt make it "pretzel logic". It makes it a valid action and claim to make under the rules as written.

"To make it worse, Sanders is using some fuzzy math with his pledged delegates argument. Even if the superdelegate system evaporated tomorrow, Clinton would still win. According to the New York Times primary calendar, there are 4,175 pledged delegates total in the Democratic primary. If we’re just counting pledged delegates and not superdelegates, the number Clinton needs to hit to win is 2,088. She only needs to win 281 delegates to hit that number and win the pledged delegate count. In contrast, Sanders needs to win 571 delegates in order to win the pledged delegates."

See how sexist Sanders is......the woman in the race hasnt actually won yet.....even when we changed the math to make her appear even closer to winning than she actually is by somehow pretending the threshold without super-delegates is 295 votes lower that it should be cause reasons."

again check the bolded section....you know the part that says "Contrary to what weve been claiming for the last few paragraphs....Clinton HASNT ACTUALLY WON YET.....she still needs 281 actual delegates".Granted yes, thats fewer than sanders needs but still. SHE HAS WON YET. 

"That is almost impossible for Sanders to pull off, even if he wins California."

Now California is 475 delegates......so if sanders won those he would only need 96 delegates to "win" the fake thresehold you made up.....and would be much closer than Hillary 281. Even under the real thereshold....hed still be leading with California's delegates added to him.

See the male privilege there. Even though in the totally fake situation we made up and changed numbers for, Sanders would be WINNING....he's being sexist by not just letting the woman have it because shes a woman and actually insisting she earn it on merit.

"Which is why he is hedging his bets by arguing that he should win even if he doesn’t win, by leaning on the very superdelegates he otherwise denounces as anti-democratic evidence of a supposed elitist conspiracy to deny him victory.

While it’s currently hip to sneer at every suggestion that sexism might be playing a role in the stubbornness of the Sanders camp, the contradictory, grasping nature of Sanders’ arguments sure makes it harder to pull off the “no sexism to see here” shenanigans."

Right see, by playing by the same rules as Hillary Clinton Sanders is being sexist....cause he should just do the chivalrous thing and let the woman win, even if he has to give her an unfair advantage in the rules to do it. (though again, I dont dispute the hypocrisy charge) 

"Not all sexism is overt, after all. Most sexism is subtle and subconscious, with people harboring prejudicial beliefs that women are inherently less deserving and less competent than men."

Such as the form being suffered by the author apparently.....shes the one arguing Clinton shouldnt actually be expected to win the election outright even when she creates a situation favoring sanders as she did with the California thing.

" Research shows, for instance, that when people are asked two applications that are identical, except one has a woman’s name and one has a man’s name, they rate the man as more competent and more deserving of a job and opportunities than the woman. Even though, and this cannot be stressed enough,everything else on the application was identical. Women get demerits just by being female."

So I guess in this case, the only fair not sexist thing to do is give the woman extra credit just by being female.....in fact asking her to meet on equal ground (as sanders is by claiming she actually win) is no sexist......

"Which is why Sanders’s behavior in recent weeks is so troubling. Clinton has won, fair and square. She has more votes. She has more pledged delegates. She has more superdelegates. She has more voters."

All true.....well except for the part where shes "won fair and square" because as your own article points out...shes still about 300 votes short of that ( which is actually 571 votes short under the actual thresehold of 2383). But hey, I guess Bernies a sexist for not giving her a handicap right?

"Even if you tweaked the rules, she is the winner. . Every “what if” scenario — what if we got rid of the superdelegates? what if the Democrats used Republican rules? what if there were more open primaries? —Clinton still wins."

Well....except for the way YOU tweeked the rules earlier in which you made Sanders the likely winner in that "What if" Scenario by giving him california. Though that was balanced out by the tweek you asked for in which super delegates cant change their support......under that tweek clinton won...but those arnt the actual rules.

"There is no rational reason for Sanders and his supporters to act like he is somehow more deserving of this than Clinton."

Except for the part where she hasnt won yet....but hey.

"And yet, Sanders is carrying on as if it’s obvious that he deserves to win, and just a little more pressure will cause everyone to finally see it and give him what he clearly believes is his due. Thus all the chatter about how the system is “rigged.”

Whatever is in his heart, Sanders is coasting on male privilege right now, namely the male privilege of being assumed to be more competent and more worthy than a female competitor, even if she has demonstrated her value by all objective measures."

See the sexism....just cause he hasnt actually lost yet, Sanders has the unmitigated gail to assume he might still have a chance. Even when faced with an opponent who hasnt actually won yet. I mean really he should know his place and just bow down to the superior gender here....

"This problem isn’t unique to Sanders. On the contrary, it’s common as dirt. When a woman or person of color has shown great success, people in the dominant group often argue that they can’t have done this on their own, but had to have gotten there by cheating. You see that every time conservatives gripe about “affirmative action,” assuming that people of color who get into college somehow are edging out more deserving white people by doing so. You see it with Donald Trump arguing that Clinton is only winning by playing the “woman card,” a blatant expression of the belief that women can only win by cheating.

Sanders is not being overtly sexist, to be clear. You’ll never hear him say Clinton is playing the “woman card.” Such overt sexism is easy to denounce.

Still, Sanders is leaning on a more subtle, ingrained form of sexism, by holding himself out as the clearly superior candidate, despite Clinton’s actual, real world victory."

Right.....except for the part where, again as your own article points out, the real world victory doesnt exist yet, cause Clinton hasnt won outright

In fact the victory only exists in the fantasy world you created in which Sanders should play by separate and different rules with the superdelegates that ensure he doesnt have the same chance to win as the superior gender.

And *he's* the sexist one....

If Clinton was a man, the notion that it’s self-evident that Sanders is somehow the “true” winner would be a much harder sell. It would make him a laughingstock, in fact. But the notion that a woman who does so well must be an imposter has a lot of emotional salience in our culture. Whether it’s enough to help boost Sanders to a convention fight even after Clinton gains a clean majority of pledged delegates, however, remains to be seen.

No. I'm pretty sure that if Clinton were a man and nothing else was different the math still would say Mr. Clinton was 571 votes short of what was needed to win, unless math has a Penis Multiplier I never learned about in school that somehow gives you 100 delegates for ever inch your packing or something.....

Now I will admit, in the likely situation Mrs. Clinton gets those 571 votes tonight, and sanders doesnt drop out, that will change things as far as the validity of his argument to stay in the race...but at least as of the time this went to press? Apparently its sexist not to let the woman win after she does only 90% of the work a man would need to do to win the same thing......

And people say irony is dead.