Timing and methodology is everything when you are mounting a campaign to persuade the public that your view should be adopted. It was apt for the Sanders followers to advocate for the issues he raised during the primary. That was a good first step. But rarely does a group win over the public in the first step.
Changing minds, and raising the consciousness of American voters who have a different opinion, no opinion at all, requires persistence, patience and an understanding of human nature. Assuming Clinton wins the nomination, the second step for the Sanders followers should be the consolidation of of the Democratic party behind Clinton to preserve the gains already won, and to then seek to advance them after the election of Clinton.
The third step would thus be to pressure Clinton to move on some of the Sanders’ agenda, and to elect a Congress and state governments that will further fuel the “revolution” Sanders has described.
If however the Sanders followers adopt as their second step creating the illusion of a revolution at the Philadelphia Convention, the Sanders followers could turn off the low-information-voters, and the independents; and worse, they could smear their own movement as radical ideologues, which could yield the worst of all results, catapulting Trump into the White House.
There comes a time when the brute force of disruption can be completely counter productive. Using it at the Philadelphia Convention for example, would probably result in the Democrats’ repudiation and rejection of Sanders’ agenda, and pushing the party to the right-center as it moved under similar circumstances following the disruption of the Humphrey presidential campaign in 1968.
John Lennon of the Beatles, hardly a reactionary or an advocate of the status quo, was a strategic thinker. He recognized that modern “revolutions” have to be sold to the public, and that trying to impose them before the public is ready, would be a disastrous mistake. He wrote the song “Revolution” to communicate his view.
The back story is that in 1968, John Lennon wrote the lyrics for “Revolution” in response to the disruptive tactics of college students’ who crashed the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago, and then plagued the Hubert Humphrey presidential campaign and helped elect Richard Nixon.
The college students had a legitimate reason to express political opposition to the Vietnam War, they raised aspects of the issue that Americans were just beginning to grasp. The protesters would have had a much better chance of achieving a quick end to the war if Humphrey had won the presidency since Humphrey delivered a televised speech in Salt Lake City to a nation-wide audience, and announced that if he was elected, he would put an end to the bombing of North Vietnam, and called for a ceasefire.*
Lennon doubted the protesters in 1968 would advance their ultimate cause, and feared they would actually distract from their message (which he supported); and thus he wrote the lyrics, “count me out”.
I urge the Sanders followers to consider the lyrics:
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world…
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out…
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're all doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You'd better free your mind instead…
“Revolution” (1968), Lennon-McCartney (emphasis added)