THIS. Of course emotions intensify at this stage of any campaigns. That’s a given. It doesn’t follow that therefore this primary cycle is similar to the one in 2008.
What to compare here is not such hard, intense feelings. What fundamentally separates this cycle from eight years ago is that one campaign is more than willing to delegitimize the entire rules and process of the party in the name of “democracy” and to delegitimize the nominee coming out of that process. It’s that his supporters follow the candidate’s lead and plan protest events to delegitimize the nomination.
That’s what separates this cycle from 2008. Technicality aside, we expect conventions to be a prime kick-off opportunity to unify behind the nominee and show it to a larger audience nationwide. And people from inside plan to protest it for full four days. Did that happen in 2008? I don’t remember.
And those protestors’ leader (a professional protestor himself) has put himself in a position where he couldn’t act to discourage such protests without delegitimizing himself, but not discouraging them also delegitimizes him in the eye of his Dem colleagues in the Senate where this guy will go back to. A nearly impossible task – and inevitably lotta double-talk follows. No doubt there will be a lot more zig-zags ahead than 2008.