You briefly hit on an important point: The quickest way to loose our freedom is to allow government to control internal operations of political associations. But, use of elections to determine candidate selection is a public activity already and appropriately governed by literally thousands of state and federal laws. The parties already cannot adopt rules that discriminate based on race, age, national origin or religion. Why should they be allowed to do it by whole states full of Americans? Votes are cast by individuals--that is the whole point. That's why grouping them and disenfranchising in mass should be so personally offensive to believers in democracy.
I would add to the laws a requirement that the parties treat every primary vote on a one-person one-vote basis. it is consistent with the anti-discrimination laws that also serve the American value that every American voter is personally important as part of his national heritage..
The party committees could decide not to hold primaries--to choose nominees by contests to see who can best imitate Joan Baez, for all I care. But, if they use public elections they should have to accept one-person one-vote along with all the other expressions of the value that in America individuals are both equal and of consequence.
You distinguish our recent disenfranchisement of millions of Americans from those in the Soviet Union and Iran because our disenfranchisements followed actions by "freely elected representatives."
In the Soviet Union and Iran, people could and can have all their political rights on the condition that they endorse the desires and actions of those in power. It is a choice they have as individuals. Run afoul of the desires of those in power or oppose the actions of those in power and you loose your electoral voice.
A majority of the voters in Florida and Michigan exercised their right to set election dates at variance with the desires of the DNC and RNC though their legislatures. They were then stripped of their right to participate on a statewide basis. In fact, some Florida voters personally agreed with the DNC and the RNC, but were disenfranchised nonetheless.
That the "punishment" of disenfranchisement was administered in a group mass manner rather than having it done in a discrete one-by-one manner doesn't seem a distinction of redeeming importance.
The reason for all the disenfranchisements--Soviet, Iranian and American is the same---retaining power for officials.
On another dimension, you might imply that what happened this year is different from Jim Crow's disenfranchisements because Jim Crow was motivated by race hatred while this year's disenfranchisements arose as ad hoc reactions to events disliked by party officials.
In making that distinctions you must concede that this year's "violated" rules had the purpose of protecting the parties' power to "set the schedule" for state primary elections--the very principle the people of Florida and Michigan contested. In other words, the dispute was over who'd exercise a power.
The history of Jim Crow is does not support the distinction you might imply. Jim Crow allowed African-Americans to vote in the numbers and in the locales where control of power by Whites could be maintained with the least effective disenfranchisement. Where there were few Blacks, they were allowed to vote. Where there was a majority of Blacks, none were allowed to vote. The decision and mechanics of who got to vote was determined by the need to control power--a picture indistinguishable in its operation from what the parties have done this year.
Furthermore, you might suggest this year's disenfranchisements are a once only thing while Jim Crow was longterm. How do you know? If you accept the principle that millions of votes can be voided by party officials when the officials feel the need to disenfranchise in order to preserve their own supposed powers, what's to say that they won't feel the same need in the next election cycle and the next and the next; just as Jim Crow officials felt the need to disenfranchise for decades.
What if the party official used the power only every other election, or every third election? Does that make it acceptable while Jim Crow wasn't?
You say, "The rules are in place for a reason: to preserve the tradition of the
contests in Iowa and New Hampshire"
Which is exactly the tradition that Florida and Michigan acted to end after a third of a century of their citizens not mattering.
Do you think Iowa and New Hampshire's primacy justifies a third of a century of rendered meaningless the votes in Florida and other states? Do you think it justifies mass disenfranchisement reaching to the millions in America?
How do you square all that with the American democratic sensibility that every voter should matter and matter equally?
Consider also that even after the DNC announced the votes wouldn't count, more Floridian Democrats performed the sacred civic ceremony of voting than the total of all votes cast in both Iowa and New Hampshire. They took the slap in the face and still acted like they should matter.
You say "common sense" and fear of electoral chaos justify the disenfranchisement of millions of your fellow Americans.'
I respond that common sense suggests that counting votes be the inviolable foundation of a democratic system for choosing national leaders and that no official should again have the power to commit mass disenfranchisements. It isn't about rules, it is about democracy--everyday voting people controlling who governs the nation. Voters should chose the leaders, leaders shouldn't get to chose the voters.
I also respond that chaos can be just as well managed with inviolate respect for individual votes as it is managed under a system where official get to choose whose vote will count. It isn't necessary to empower officials to void votes to preserve order.
You ask, "If there are no consequences to breaking the rules, then what point is
there in having the rules?" There is a sensibility in the military, where following rules can be a life and death matter, that an officer never gives an order that he or she knows will not be obeyed.
The party committees knew the legislatures are in legal control of primary dates when they made their threat to disenfranchise. They knew that people of Florida and Michigan were demanding their legislators move the dates. That is, indeed, why the party committees made the threat. The party committees expected to get their way by intimidation, even though the legal power to control primary dates rested elsewhere.
Whose the bad guy here--the legislatures responding to public will by exercising their legal prerogatives or the party committees who assert a power that is universally denied by the law itself.
Who resorted to disenfranchisement of millions of individuals to teach a collective lesson that their self-assumed prerogatives must be respected?
You ask what point is there to having rules if they are going to be flouted? None whatsoever if the only way you can enforce them is to take peoples' votes away. The means for enforcement is exponentially more evil than any good meant to be protected.
You are content to have the old system--with New Hampshire and Iowa holding an anti-democratic primacy in the selection of our presidents. Who made you king? Why should the DNC and RNC get to decide one American will matter more than another.
You value something called "retail politics" over having every American experience the ideal that he matters and matters equally in our democracy. Your and my values are different.
You ask what alternative schedule I personally suggest: I've already told you, one where every vote is always counted, one where no official gets to tell any American that you've got to matter less than another.
For my preference, one where Iowa and New Hampshire's importance is proportional only to their population. I'd strip the bastards of the very inflated importance that deluded them into celebrating when other Americans were disenfranchised earlier this year.
If "punishment" was any more relevant in this context than it was with Michigan and Florida, the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have earned it by their arrogant flouting of other American's equality. But punishment doesn't fit here any more than it justifies disenfranchisement elsewhere. What's right is that all Americans matter equally; what is proper is that every American hopes that all other Americans share in their equal ability to participate in our democracy.
Am I right?
I'd like to see Americans actually believe that democracy actually works in the real world.
We are too cynical for our own good.
