Samantha Bee Explains Why Bernie Sanders Supporters Are Wrong About Superdelegates

The Monday edition of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee took aim at the "Superdelegate Hit List," a supposed effort by supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to pressure superdelegates pledged to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into flipping their votes.

According to Bee's explanation of the superdelegate system, Sanders supporters have it all wrong.

"Cool the harassment — these aren't female gamers," Bee began. "Do you even know what superdelegates are? I didn't. That's why we had to go away for two weeks."

"First of all, political parties aren't the government," she explained. "They're semi-private clubs. If they wanted, they could use a sorting hat to pick their nominees. Gah, Slytherin!"

Bee offered a short history of the Democratic nomination system, beginning with 1968, when the party's decision to nominate the pro-Vietnam War Hubert Humphrey against the will of the majority of Democrats ended in riots. The party then allowed voters more control over the eventual nominee.

But after electoral disasters in 1972 (the nomination of George McGovern), 1976 (the election of Jimmy Carter) and 1980 (Ted Kennedy's brutal primary campaign against Carter), Democrats changed the system again to give party elites more of a say again.

"The Democratic Party had O.D.'d on democracy," Bee quipped. "So, in 1982, the grown-ups said enough. From now on Democratic governors, members of Congress, and party movers and shakers get a say."

"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 concluded. "How do I know? Because they did it in '08."

According to Bee, the superdelegate system is more in place to stop a candidate like former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, whose career was destroyed amid revelations of extramarital affairs, or someone like Donald Trump, whose unfavorable rating hovers at an average of 64.5%. It's not there to stop a candidate like Sanders.

However, seeing as Clinton's lead in superdelegates this year is far greater than in 2008, it remains possible that Sanders could score a win in pledged delegates and still walk away from the convention without the nomination. But with Clinton still performing strongly electorally, leading Sanders by some 210 delegates, the senator has catching up to do before he has to worry about superdelegates.