Democratic Party Attempts To Embrace Bernie Sanders’ Staunchest Supporters
In the last day of the Democratic convention, Bernie Sanders’ supporters remain defiant in their refusal to concede to Hillary Clinton, even when Bernie had already done so.
The Hill is one of many sources that reported the final plea from Bernie Sanders during the roll call for his state of Vermont, saying that he gave his blessing to the Democratic Party to nominate Hillary Clinton.
Despite even this, however, supporters for Bernie Sanders have continued to oppose the party’s pick for Hillary Clinton around the latest of her two widely and publicized email scandals, where the latest one shows conversations among leaders from within the Democratic National Committee, who tried to block Bernie Sanders’ campaign, showing more favoritism towards Hillary Clinton.
One movement which refers to itself as “Bernie or Bust,” according to the Washington Post, is actively opposing the nomination, while the convention closed the roll call with Sanders, to make sure they had his support on record.
Anti-Hillary Camp Coming Around?
The Democratic National Convention is designed to bring supporters around to their nominee, this year being Hillary Clinton, who according to poll research is largely considered untrustworthy and somewhat corrupt. Much of the sentiment coming from the Bernie or Bust groups largely believe this, which compliments the recent email leaks provided by Wikileaks right before the Democratic National Convention began.
Rather than deny the anti-Hillary groups at all, as they did vigorously during the email conversations against Bernie and the denial against the Bernie supporters during the first day of the convention, the Democrats appear to have moved to embrace the Bernie or Bust groups, hoping they can get more support for Hillary.
“They had never been in a Democratic Party meeting. They wanted to get involved. And it would be a terrible, terrible shame if we do not figure out a way to capture that energy, to capture that idealism, to capture that love of this country.”
But letting them in has been difficult as they have been very vocal during speeches from various Democratic leaders, which Bernie Sanders acknowledged, telling his supporters that it’s easy to boo.
“But it is harder to look your kids in the face who would be living under a Donald Trump presidency.”
One of the senators booed was Cory Booker who was working to spread a more positive message of unity between the Bernie and Hillary supporters.
Rolling Stone writes about the last stand the Bernie or Bust people are taking against Clinton, describing a scene where one person was able to get them to chant “Hillary for prison” but loses them when they tried to get them to chant “all lives matter,” which revealed the “seams” of their determined cause.
The argument the Bernie or Bust people are often faced with is that if they refuse to vote for Hillary, then they are handing the presidency over to Donald Trump; one response they’ve had to this is that the statement is a trap, but others say that it’s worth it to teach the Bernie “backstabbers” in the DNC a lesson.
“I’m willing to pay that price just to teach them a lesson, and maybe they’ll fix what they did after they see what a mistake they made. I know that’s a huge price to pay.”
Anything is possible in an election year, especially an unconventional one, but far more difficult for immediate and spontaneous change in the nomination process the further into the campaign it is. The convention would be the last time anti-Hillary activists have a chance to shout over the scheduled speakers, no matter how far up in their position they might be, but they’re very unlikely to get the attention of the media during the rest of the general election, especially with Bernie Sanders showing no signs of wanting to defeat Hillary Clinton anymore and appearing more focused on defeating Donald Trump.
[Photo by John Minchillo/AP Images]
