Samantha Bee took the past two weeks off and, as she remarked at the top of tonight’s new Full Frontal, “Dang, things have gotten ugly since we left.”
And for once, she wasn’t talking about the Republicans.
After playing some clips of the latest sniping between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, she said, “I think Nana and Zayde are getting a divorce.”
When they are not attacking Clinton, Sanders supporters are spending most of their time taking aim at the superdelegates, most of which have already pledged their convention votes to the former secretary of state.
Bee delivered a brief history of the Democratic Party, from the 19th century policy of “just nominating the guy with the best facial hair” through the 1968 DNC riots to 1980 when Ted Kennedy’s primary challenge left Jimmy Carter too damaged to beat Ronald Reagan.
“The Democratic Party had O.D.’d on democracy,” she said. “So, in 1982, the grown-ups said enough. From now on Democratic governors, members of Congress, and party movers and shakers get a say.” It is those people who we now call superdelegates.
“Superdelegates’ only job is to act in the best interest of the party,” Bee continued. “That’s why they have never tried to override the will of the voters. Not because they care about us, they don’t. But because pissing off the voters is bad for their party.
“If Bernie gets more votes than Hillary, her superdelegates will drop her faster than she drops her fake southern accent the second she leaves South Carolina,” Bee said. After all, that’s exactly what happened in 2008 when Barack Obama surpassed Clinton in the regular delegate count.
According to Bee, superdelegates do not exist to stop someone like Sanders. They are there to stop someone like Donald Trump. “Believe me, Republicans would give their left nut for superdelegates right now,” she concluded.
