Senator Bernie Sanders capped off a tumultuous first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) with a speech that urged his supporters to back Mrs Hillary Clinton as the party’s presidential nominee, while also continuing to fuel his political revolution. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and his advisers had long claimed: that the DNC was biased toward Clinton in the party’s primaries and caucuses.
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The first day of the Democratic convention featured a host of top political leaders like Senator Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, and stars like Demi Lovato, Paul Simon and Boyz II Men.
“They weren’t booing him from a standpoint of anything but passion”, she continued. She did not mention Clinton, and there were no boos.
Amidst a hearty welcome and a sustained applause that lasted nearly three minutes, Sanders told his followers that Clinton “must become the next president of the United States”, and urged unity.
Former Democratic national committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not have the opportunity to gavel in the convention. Litigating the sins of the DNC and being too defensive about Clinton risked inflaming the passions of Sanders supporters in the room – some of whom made their voices heard even as their liberal heroes were speaking.
But Kristy Douglas, 27, a Sanders delegate from Jasper, Tenn., said she’s unsure whether she will vote for Clinton in November, though she also made clear she wouldn’t vote for Trump either.
First lady Michelle Obama and Massachusetts Sen. She noted several pending lawsuits pertaining to the primary process, uncounted ballots in California in addition to the latest email scandal and Clinton’s vice presidential pick Sen.
“To all of our supporters here and around the country, I hope you take enormous pride in the historical accomplishments we have achieved”, said Sanders.
However, Sanders implied that Trump wants people to be paid less, but Trump has said the opposite. In his late-night speech at the Wells Fargo Center, Sanders gave perhaps his most full-throated endorsement of Clinton so far. “The choice is not even close”.
Warren spent much of her speech dismantling Trump – something at which she has become adept. In 1948, Hubert Humphrey forced the Democratic Party leadership to add support for civil rights to the platform by using the minority plank procedure, which ended up boosting black turnout for the Democrats in the following election.
Laurie Dworak, a 52-year-old Sanders delegate from Chattanooga, was not among the Sanders backers who booed during Monday’s rally. Cheri Honkala, the organiser for the Philadelphia-based PPEHRC, said her group’s demonstration is meant to put a spotlight on the plague of homelessness and poverty in the city.
Democratic officials and convention organizers were, to put it mildly, eager to make Sanders’ supporters happy.
“It’s more an expression of frustration”, Dworak said of the booing. “This is the real world that we live in”.
It says something about our times that both parties are so loudly divided by insurgent candidates over some of the same issues – job loss, income inequality, comprehensive immigration reform – although offering very different solutions.
That didn’t quell the unrest from Sanders supporters, particularly as the convention got underway.
“I’m really annoyed”, said MI delegate Bruce Fealk.
The furore was a blow to a party keen on projecting stability in contrast to the volatility of Republican candidate Donald Trump, who was formally nominated at a raucous convention in Cleveland last week. “This was a tough primary for Hillary Clinton”.
Protesters then began staging a sit-in in an attempt to block some delegates from entering.
That’s how our system works – you get half a loaf, and come back later for the other half. “Hillary Clinton wants to see that all Americans to have right to choose public option in their health care exchange”.
And yet wounds are evident. I don’t know. But there was a sense of catharsis when the tension of Oh my God they’re going to boo Bernie! broke that probably broke the resistance to Clinton once and for all.
“I want someone with the proven strength to persevere”.
While Mrs. Obama has often avoided overt politics, her frustration with Trump’s rise was evident.
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“I don’t boo”, she said.
