Email scandal reveals institutional corruption in US

Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton acknowledges supporters during a campaign rally, where she received the endorsement of US President Barack Obama (R), in Charlotte, North Carolina, US, July 5, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

The US democracy is always talked about by some American politicians as a model for other countries. However, a recent email scandal over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton may turn upside down some people's view of its so-called democracy.

The emails leaked by WikiLeaks showed Democratic Party leaders had sought to undermine the campaign of Clinton's rival Bernie Sanders, including questioning Sanders' religious belief and organizing news media to defame the Sanders campaign.

In the eyes of many people, the US presidential election is exactly what a standard democracy should be: one man, one vote. Two candidates from two different parties join in a race every four years to face the choice of the voters.

The winner's party stays in power, but under the supervision of the loser's party. The rotation of the parties and the separation of powers would restrain corruption in the best.

However, it's proven that the this is nothing but a mirage.

It can't be denied that the US political system, as wished by its designers in the first place, did play a positive role in the history in improving the county's political and economic development.

But a sense of superiority was bred among some US political elites after the collapse of the former Soviet Union that the US is entitled to teach a lesson to other countries. And their sense of superiority got increasingly stronger with the use of force.

The bloated political arrogance would inevitably lead to political corruption and all the scandals in the US elections are spills naturally out of political corruption.

The scandal revealed by the email leaks told us that the Hillary's team spared no effort in helping her grab bigger power and what they did under the table was contrary to what they promised to the people on the table.

Some people tried to defend Hillary, saying many accusations were based upon misinterpretations of the leaked emails and even rumors.

But the resignation of Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz means any further explanation are futileness.

The email scandal broke out in July 22, but the major media outlets in the US chose to downplay the event weeks later. Hillary, Sanders and the DNC also made an uttermost effort to display solidarity for the presidential election.

We have to call it an institutional political corruption since the major media outlets and political elites in the US all chose to ignore such acts that seriously undermined rule of law,

'House of Cards' was not even averted within the Democratic Party, not to the mention the so-called fair competition between the Democrats and the Republicans.

The US democracy and its presidential election have already descended into formalism. The nature of the email scandal is institutional corruption. The US democracy did stem corruption in general legal terms, but it firmly upholds the control of wealth and power by a few elites.

The email scandal tells that it was not democracy shared by the people, but money politics and corruption league that US laws really guard.

The author is deputy editor-in-chief of Securities Daily