Campaign Action
Monday night at the Democratic National Convention, Bernie Sanders again issued a strong, issues-based endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. But the headlines are being dominated by a tiny subset of Sanders delegates who booed and heckled speaker after speaker, embarrassing themselves by, among other things, chanting “Goldman Sachs” at Elizabeth Warren and “No TPP” at Elijah Cummings while he was talking about his sharecropper parents. As the night went on, the California delegation was reported to be the primary offender, and on Tuesday morning, Sanders went to the source:
During a breakfast meeting with California delegates, attendees booed when Sanders said that they need to elect Clinton and defeat Trump. The senator then told the crowd that their jeers aren't helpful.
"It is easy to boo, but it’s harder to look your kids in the face who would be living under Donald Trump," he said.
But it’s revolutionary booing! Any damn corporate sellout who’d support Hillary Clinton—be it Elijah Cummings, Elizabeth Warren, John Lewis, or Bernie Sanders himself—deserves revolutionary booing, amiright?
Sanders supporters are understandably disappointed. And no one expects them to go home and start knocking on doors for Hillary Clinton. (They will hopefully start hitting doors for something, though.) But what exactly is the theory of change here, with the booing and heckling? What do they think they are building, and what goal do they imagine themselves to be making more real? As Sanders suggested, the thing these dead-enders are most actively promoting is not revolution or equality or justice, but President Trump.
