They always rig the primaries. The general election isn’t quite so incestuous as the primaries, and occasionally they don’t rig them adequately, as in 2000 and 2016. Then again, sometimes they fail utterly, as in 1980 and 1984.
In 1972, they had another epic failure to rig, but they managed to nullify the results with a scandal that resulted in Agnew and then Nixon resigning. They’ve been trying to do that again ever since, like a teenager who got “lucky” once with one girl, and is always looking to score again with others, and thereby defeating their purpose and instead getting slapped, but not hard enough to learn anything.
True. But they aren’t helping their case by fixing the primaries.