> So the Superdelegates can not only override the primary voters, they can also override the Convention?
No:
(1) Superdelegates cannot override the rest of the convention (delegates selected by caucuse and primaries) on nominations, since the 2016 rules change that removed their first-round voting rights in the nomination vote unless the difference between the top two candidates in pledged delegates is greater than the number of superdelegates.
(2) DNC members are a subset of superdelegates, they aren't the same group.
(3) currently (before the change), the National Committee can update the bylaws, and the Convention can update the bylaws; allowing the Committee to reverse anything done by the Convention (because the convention issues one every for years, the reverse is not, in practice, true). This just stabilizes that by requiring ratification of Convention-initiated amendments to the Bylaws by the Committee, similar to what is already done for Amendments to the Charter (the DNC requires a 2/3 vote, however, to unilaterally amend the Charter.)
Since the DNC could already reverse the Convention, this doesn't change the substantive distribution of power, which is probably why this has gotten zero coverage since August 5 when the proposals were announced for the agenda for the summer meeting, and despite the Intercept headline, the actual issues everyone quoted in the article had weren't about the substance but about the manner in which the DNC staff were communicating with DNC members leading up to the vote.
The primary system isn’t Democratic to begin with.
It’s a way for a private political party to nominate its candidate. Nowhere else in the world does a party go to a half baked election to decide who a political party should nominate.
The UK is shifting/shifted to this model, and is the best illustration of how much worse it is, with the quality of candidates having dropped dramatically from what the UK used to have across both Labour and Tory parties.
> We were warned about political parties by George Washington
That wasn't a prospective warning it was describing the then-current status quo, including in Washington’s own cabinet.
The mythology around parties around the founding is astounding (especially the idea that, despite adopting a similar structure to that of both the British government—which had parties—and the colonial-turned-state governments—which also had parties—the founders, who generally had experience in colonial government, did not generally expect parties in the national government. (And didn't, Washington personally aside, actively work to build them starting almost immediately when the new government was formed.)
> We'd be much better served without them.
No, we’d be much better served with more of them, and less disproportionate representation of party and ideas.
There is no such thing as politics without political parties.
The whole idea doesn’t make sense. There are massive benefits to pooling resources with like minded political actors who will then vote as a bloc once elected, in almost every political system. At least every political system that currently exists in the world outside of maybe North Korea.
Perhaps. But I have seen parties be taken over by their membership voting for candidates, and implode. Because the people who vote for candidates aren't the wider public, and they're also not the people who actually get voted for. They're nuts generally.
Then with that definition (or similar), iterate through its qualities and evaluate examples of each party that may or may not exhibit such behavior and beliefs.
I'd be interested to hear your evaluation of such an endeavor.
That doesn't sound very Democratic.