The "anointed" issue goes back way before the 2016 primaries. Clinton couldn't even get through the primaries in 2008. There's no real doubt that the Democratic establishment and the Clinton machine expected Clinton to be next up. They never developed alternative candidates among younger Democratic governors, senators, congressmen and mayors. The 2016 DNC chair had been Clinton's 2008 campaign chairman. Clinton had more than 500 superdelegate votes before the first primary. Sanders never expected to do as well as he did, but he wanted to promote a more progressive agenda and he didn't want Clinton to coast to victory unopposed. Yet he came close to winning.
Hillary was very competitive during the 2008 primaries. Far more so than Bernie in 2016. She nearly won the popular vote, and just barely lost by delegates (e.g.,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries).
While Hillary has always been least popular during campaigns, she has nonetheless been competitive and usually successful. Moreover, she had been groomed for the presidency, having spent a life in public service from non-profits, to congress, to the highest echelons of foreign policy.
The DNC's job is to promote the election of Democratic candidates. Hillary was an obvious choice. Sanders was not even a Democrat. Obviously the Establishment wasn't going to back an unknown, non-Democrat for the Democratic Primaries. At least not at first. That's not some conspiracy. It's the DNC doing its job.
You can argue all you want about whether Clinton was treated unfairly by the media, by the "vast right-wing conspiracy," by whoever. But the fact is that the Democrats nominated a candidate who was under active FBI investigation, and that hung over her head through election day. No other Democrat would have traveled with her baggage. The Democrats gave us Trump.
The majority of Democratic voters saw the FBI investigation for what it was: Petty. They correctly predicted that it would end with no results of consequence. Which it did, just prior to the close of the primaries.
The majority of Democrats also accurately predicted that Hillary would be a perfect couter to Trump. Her calm, rational, nuanced, experienced approach would contrast well against Trump's unhinged, irrational, simplistic, amateurish boasting. And it did. Until the last-minute Comey letter, Hillary was absolutely trashing Trump in the polls.
The Comey letter was not predictable. It's timing was devastating, and it played directly into the dangerous narrative that Sanders chose to wage well after he was mathematically eliminated: That the Establishment Democrats were corrupt and that Hillary was just another corrupt Establishment politician. It was the combination of Sanders' toxic, anti-Democratic rhetoric and Comey's last-minute letter that elected Trump-- that, and the minority of the Democratic base that fell for both.
I don't care who called her anointed. She was not anointed. She was by far and away the most skilled, experienced, and qualified candidate in the Democratic Party and she was clearly ready and willing to build on and cement Obama's legacy. That's not being anointed. It's being prepared.
The Democratic Party should be the party of expertise, nuance, experience, and preparedness. Ultimately Hillary's loss is due to a very small fraction of the Democratic voter base so falling for populism over substance that they refused to vote or voted third party.
