DNC Walkout: Disgusted Sanders’ Supporters Exit the ‘Hillary Party’
Philadelphia was the scene of a Democratic uprising, a DNC walkout peacefully accomplished, but nevertheless, an ingrown portent perhaps of a bad moon rising over the Party one protestor/Sanders’ delegate called the “Hillary party.”
An estimated 1,800 disgusted Bernie Sanders’ supporters and delegates walked out of the Democratic National Convention’s “Hillary Party” on Tuesday in Philadelphia, and that occurred, according to various media reports, soon after the non-neutral DNC’s favorite candidate, Hillary Clinton, “won” the roll call.
As writer Julie Washington put it in her Plain Dealer story of the drama which unfolded on Tuesday, while the second night of the Democratic Convention was scheduled to be about “unifying behind Hillary Clinton as the official nominee,” the Sanders’ delegates and supporters had absorbed too much already, and apparently there was no more room to squish in any more bogus unity and Party malarkey.
Media pounced on the walkout story, likely because it was a narrative-thing organically sprouting and so unlike the infamous “Bernie narrative” created by Party officials.
DNC, “a Hillary party”
Isaac Arnsdorf, Katie Glueck and Edward-Isaac Dovere, over at Politico, reported the grievances of Elizabeth Maratea from New Jersey, Kay West of Texas, and Lynette McClain of Colorado. The New Jersey delegate, Maratea, spoke on the DNC “collusion,” as she phrased it.
“Bernie said to ‘vote your conscience,’ and the DNC has colluded against us from the beginning. This was not a Democratic convention. This was a Hillary party.”
The so-called “collusion” which Maratea was referring to most likely meant the recent online discoveries in the weekend WikiLeaks web dump, which wreaked havoc and let slip the non-neutral dogs of war, as reported here previously.
Fellow Sanders’ backer and protestor McClain had other opinions on the problem. She believes that if Hillary Clinton really wants her vote, she needs to “… admit that there was voter fraud and corruption.” However, this is not something likely to happen.
The Texas delegate/protestor, Kay West, believes this protest was actually something Senator Bernie Sanders wanted from them, despite his words to be unified and support Clinton.
“The thing is, this is not a betrayal to Bernie, this is exactly what Bernie wants us to do.”
“Our vote doesn’t matter”
The protestors had fought hard, they told media, and there was obviously an issue of trust that needed resolution before the big ask was officially made of Bernie-delegates to just somehow and very suddenly drop all their disgust with the Party and Hillary Clinton.
It all just did not seem “fair” to one delegate from Hawaii named Raina Whiting, who had traveled a long ways and was interviewed by Marisa Schultz, writing her report for the New York Post online.
“It feels like our vote doesn’t matter at all. When we arrived they had already decided our votes didn’t matter and Hillary was already the nominee.”
Whiting had more to say on it.
“A lot of people were holding out hope Bernie would get the nomination. When he finally ended up saying we’re going to make this unanimous and Hillary is our nominee it really didn’t feel like the right thing to do. It felt like he was backed into a corner and forced to make that decision … It’s never been fair.”
And Maya Rhodan, who posted her narrative of the big DNC walkout over at the Time website, observed that the emotions of these Sanders’ delegates and supporters were “raw,” and perhaps it had to do with the recent revelation of the conspiracy against Bernie Sanders by the DNC. Quoted in the story was Jim Boydston, a delegate from California.
“He made a commitment to run for president. He had made a commitment to contest this convention. He hadn’t conceded. He hadn’t suspended. He hadn’t released us. And he told us that he would be grateful for our vote. And then he just handed it off.”
(AP Photo/John Minchillo)
