Inside the Convention: Day Four
July 28, 2016
As I rolled out of bed on the morning of July 28th, I found the general sense of dread from the night before was still with me. The California Bernie Delegation had established themselves as a powerful block of activists within the convention — a group large enough to single-handedly lead the 1900 scattered Bernie delegates in the arena in chants and protests that disrupted televised speeches.
And tonight was the most important televised speech of all. Tonight was the final night of the Democratic National Convention, when Hillary Clinton would formally accept her nomination as the first female nominee of the party.
For the last couple nights, Lindsay and I had debated and discussed this turbulent and complicated moment in politics, and our role in it. On the one hand, we felt enormously proud to be a part of the delegation that stood up and used our numbers to say “Enough is Enough” inside the halls of the convention — to send a clear message to the DNC that all is not well in the Democratic Party, that we will no longer tolerate business-as-usual in Washington, and that we find the Clintons (and the way they operate) to be utterly symbolic of the corrupt status-quo.
On the other hand, we were painfully aware that this view was not shared by many watching the convention at home. To many of our friends and family texting and tweeting online, the parade of diversity on display at the Democratic Convention was a perfectly wonderful contrast to the hateful bigotry in Cleveland the week before. All was well in the Democratic Party (especially compared to those horrible Republicans!) and it was all culminating in the first woman nominee taking the stage and making history.
As Lindsay and I headed to the final meeting of the California Bernie delegates that morning, we had come to a tentative conclusion: for the millions of viewers for whom Hillary Clinton’s nomination was not only not problematic, but an inspiring milestone…we, the Bernie delegation, could cause more harm to our movement than good if a major disruption broke out during her speech.
We were all for holding up signs in protest, drawing attention to key issues we don’t trust her to follow through on; even acts of silent protest such as turning away or walking out sounded good to us. But booing, jeering, or screaming down the first female candidate of the Democratic Party on live TV could be a disastrous moment for the movement in the eyes of the mainstream public. At least that was what our guts were telling us as we entered the conference room and sat amongst our fellow delegates.
It was our most organized meeting yet. We had become one big family over the course of the convention, and the meeting began with many delegates tearfully saying this was one of the most important experiences of their lives; that they were so incredibly proud of we had accomplished; that though there were moments of fear and intimidation from angry Hillary delegates or DNC security, we had stuck together and stood our ground. I was moved seeing the emotion on so many people’s faces — we were activists who believed deeply in what we were fighting for, and together we had brought our collective voice into an otherwise scripted convention. It was no small feat, and everyone in the room felt how profound a moment we were all in.
The last of the bright, neon-green “Enough is Enough” t-shirts were handed out to delegates (little did we know they were awesome glow-in-the-dark shirts that would make our delegates stand out in the arena). Then we got down to business: what were we doing tonight? Lindsay and I both added our name to the list of delegates who wanted 30 seconds to weigh in. There were, as expected, diverse opinions amongst the delegation.
One delegate urged us to “protest, but protest from a place of love,” which I thought was a good way of putting it (too often Bernie protesters could resemble angry, hateful Trumpsters to the casual observer). I asked the delegation to keep any protest silent out of respect and compassion for fellow Americans who saw this moment as an inspirational milestone, not a corrupt politician to be shouted down. Another delegate had the exact opposite perspective: “We are here right now, this is only happening once, and we won’t have another chance. Our voters sent us here to make some noise, and I think we should make some noise!” Other delegates stressed that anything we do should be clearly issue-oriented, not simply disruptive.
Ultimately, it all came down to a vote. First we voted on Option #1: no verbal protest at all. Lindsay and I were among only a few who raised our hands. So, that was out.
Next, we voted on Option #2 — a compromise of sorts between the loudest rabble-rousers and the worry-warts like me. Any protesting would be restricted to a few agreed-upon chants (“Ban Fracking Now” / “No More Wars”) which would be chanted in unison only at specific moments during a speech — and only for 5–7 rounds before cutting off. Essentially, it was as an attempt to protest in a pointed, targeted way, about particular issues. This option received support from the overwhelming majority of the room.
The only trouble was, who would lead these tight, organized chants in the chaotic messiness of the convention hall? There were so many of us, and we didn’t have the tight, top-down organization of the Hillary delegation. I immediately felt that this plan was on shaky ground, and that we would need some strong leadership from key delegates to actually pull it off. Lindsay began to brainstorm a list of 5 or so agreed-upon chants with with a group of California delegates.
We wasted no time before heading to the charter buses to get to the arena early (we were told to go as soon as possible, as Hillary delegates and “fillers” would be try to take our seats in the California section). As we passed through security at the Wells Fargo Center, I noticed they were being more stringent than other nights — they wouldn’t let me bring my clear, see-through plastic water bottle (which had been allowed the previous day) or a much-needed energy drink (which I was rather devastated to see them toss).
When we entered the arena, there were already Bernie delegates doing whatever they could to “rope off” an area to make sure there were enough seats for all of us. I sat near the end of one row, hoping to be in a position to have some influence over any protests that went down (we agreed to look to delegate leaders in the aisles for cues on when and when not to chant). Lindsay ended up on the opposite side of the section, also near an aisle. Soon, I was asked to move so that a disabled person could have the aisle seat. I obliged and moved down a couple seats.
After a while though, I realized there was nobody sitting in that now-empty aisle seat. A (quite able-bodied) man in a suit approached and took it, and preceded to look down at his phone, never really looking up or chatting with any of the other delegates. As the arena filled up, delegates started having trouble finding a place to sit. At some point, the woman next to me realized the man in the suit didn’t have a delegate badge around his neck. She asked him, “Are you a California delegate?” As I recall he kind of gave a non-answer. But it wasn’t yes.
One of our delegate leaders was standing nearby and asked him to vacate the seat — this section was supposed to be for California delegates only. After a moment of hesitation, he left. As he left we were struck by the fact that he had no identification or badge whatsoever; how did he even get in? They were checking our badges at every entrance to the hall. It was the first sign that the DNC was doing whatever they could to position their people in and around our delegation.
The atmosphere was tense. You could feel a general unease in the air as the Hillary and Bernie delegates sat apart from each other segregated groups. People were scared to get up and go to the bathroom, lest their seat be quickly snatched up by another faux-delegate. We had just received a text from Bernie, personally asking us to be “respectful” of Sec. Clinton when she took the stage tonight, as she had asked her supporters to be respectful of him. He was seated in a box near the California delegation and I felt sick to my stomach about the idea of us disappointing him tonight with our actions.
As I sat in my non-aisle seat, I quickly typed up a clear list of the agreed-upon chants Lindsay had passed on to me, with instructions on what kind of a “cue” would trigger them. I started texting this list to delegates I knew and asked them to pass it on. Nobody else had yet gotten the word out about our plan and I could already see the whole “tightly orchestrated protest” idea falling apart.
I don’t know if it was my text, or a mole in our delegation, or even our delegate leaders coerced by the Bernie campaign to spill the beans on our plans…but somehow, the Clinton camp knew exactly what we were planning to do. As posted by a Vox reporter later that night, a text was sent out to all Hillary delegates which included every chant we had brainstormed, as well as counter chants that they were told to shout in order to drown us out. While we were a bottom-up, scattered delegation — spreading plans by word-of-mouth and peer-to-peer texts — the Hillary delegates were nothing less than an army of foot soldiers, receiving frequent top-down orders on exactly what to do.
They were notified exactly when to stand and hold their “Hillary” signs up as high as they could — to block the “unauthorized” signs brought in by Bernie delegates. They were told to chant “U-S-A!” to drown out “No More War.” They were told to chant “Hil-la-ry!” to drown out “No T-P-P” or “Ban Fracking Now.” If we chanted “Black Lives Matter” or “Love is Love,” they were told to join us. Social issues — no problem! Economic, foreign policy or fossil-fuel related protests — drown ’em out!
So in essence, all my fears of disappointing Bernie, of a disorganized angry disruption during Hillary’s speech tarnishing our movement…none of that was ever going to happen — at least not on Americans’ television sets. We would not be on camera, and our voices would not be heard. They would be drowned out by a spectacularly organized delegation which simply had more bodies in the arena.
I didn’t know that at the time though. So as I looked around and realized that nobody was really leading us — that the plan of precisely timed, issues-based chants were not going to happen, I began speaking to our delegate leaders about a Plan B. I argued we should get the word out that staying silent — protesting visually but aurally — would be the best compromise at this point, in order to both make Bernie proud and send a message. The middle-of-the-road path we voted on wasn’t going to happen. If we were protesting, it was going to be spontaneous and led by the loudest, angriest voices. We were the opposite of the Hillary delegation’s top-down obedience.
But as one of our leaders told me: “It’s too late. We voted on what were going to do. People want to chant. I can’t tell them not to.”
And so the big moment finally arrived. To the deafening sound of “Fight Song,” Hillary Clinton took the stage and the arena went wild.
Over in the California section, the Bernie delegates all stood and held up signs that read: “WALK THE WALK.” We continued to hold up signs relating to various issues throughout the speech. I remained silent, but many others did not. When some particularly aggressive delegates broke out into chants early in the speech, myself and another LA delegate signaled to stop, to hold off for a more appropriate moment or pause in the speech. But another delegate quickly told us to cut it out — “It’s their free-speech, they’re here to protest. Stop telling them what to do!”
It became clear there was never going to be a tightly organized protest during Clinton’s speech. It was always going to be spontaneous and organic. And as mentioned above, it didn’t particularly matter anyway: her delegates would drown out any chants coming from our side of the room as soon as they started. Ultimately I realized that none of this was in anybody’s control—not mine, not Bernie’s. Even the Clinton camp realized they could do nothing but simply shout louder than the protesters in the California delegation.
I barely heard Clinton’s speech — not because the Bernie delegates were chanting constantly (they weren’t for much of the speech) — but because I was so lost in my thoughts, my ambivalence towards everything that had happened during this roller coaster of a week. I thought about how this moment had such different meanings to so many people—how some little girls accross America were looking up to their new hero at the same time a young black woman next to me was turning her back on a candidate and a party she felt no longer represented her.
The knot in my stomach didn’t go away as we filed out of the Wells Fargo Center. It wasn’t until I was sitting at a pub with some fellow delegates (and progressive activists within the California Democratic Party) that my mind stopped worrying about what had transpired at this turbulent convention and started looking to the future. We talked about how much we could accomplish in California — how we needed to become delegates within the state party and gain the power to endorse truly progressive candidates at the local level. Maybe we couldn’t enact Bernie’s bold agenda in Washington, but we could do it here in California first — goals like single-payer health care and tuition-free public universities could be proven viable in our massive state.
It felt so inspiring to be surrounded by such committed activists, who had been fighting this fight long before I got involved (many were delegates for Jerry Brown in 1992 and met each other at that other Clinton convention). As I headed back to the hotel, there was a spring in my step again. This was just the beginning of a new progressive movement, brought together by one incredible individual who dared to stand up to the political establishment and use a presidential election to change the conversation in America.
The Clintons’ List
As soon as I entered the hotel lobby, I hurried to the bathroom (I’d had 1/3 of a pitcher of beer). As I washed my hands in the bathroom, a bearded man in a crisp collared shirt commented: “Nice shirt.” I looked down and realized I was still wearing my bright neon “Enough is Enough” t-shirt. “Thanks,” I said.
“You guys picked the perfect color. They’re not going to be able to photoshop out you guys from the pictures.” The man said he was a reporter for a Florida newspaper and had heard as much from another journalist. I told him we had no idea we wearing an un-Photoshop-able color, but that was a cool unintended consequence. As he left, he said:
Well one thing’s for sure, you guys definitely made an impression. You can bet you’re on the Clintons’ list now…and the NSA’s.
I almost laughed, but then realized he was dead serious.
The “Clintons’ list.” The NSA. A chill ran down my spine. I was part of the California Delegation — the rabble-rousers who were known throughout the convention as the ones “causing all the trouble.” Of course I was on some “lists” now.
I was hit with a wave of paranoia — what have uploaded to Google Photos? What exchanges in my Facebook messages, or emails, would I not want others to see? What do I have online that they could use against me one day if I were to run for office…or if I caused too much “trouble” as an activist on the outside?
I stumbled up to my room then crashed into a deep sleep.
The next day, myself and some friends took a bus tour of Philly before we left town. It’s a beautiful city and it was such a relief to decompress and just enjoy myself after such an exhausting, stressful week.
We took a Lyft that day, and the driver quickly picked up that were Bernie supporters in town for the convention.
I asked him if he’d been driving around a lot of delegates this week. He said he’d driven some, but most of his rides had been journalists. I asked him what the journalists were saying about everything. He immediately responded: “Well, first of all they basically say don’t believe anything you see on TV. There’s no real reporting going on there.” That much I knew, but it was startling to hear it repeated by journalists.
He went on: “They all said Clinton should be indicted. Criminal — treasonous, some even described things she and Bill have done.” They weren’t just talking about the FBI investigation of her email server. They were talking about the Clinton Foundation and her time as Secretary of State, and other inside-the-beltway stories that the mainstream media hadn’t even reported on.
Perhaps my driver was unlucky enough to have picked up a steady clientele of Fox News and Right-Wing Radio “journalists,” and maybe everything he was repeating now was just bullshit spewed from the conservative press. Perhaps these “journalists” were all just misogynistic assholes who hated Clinton for irrational, sexist reasons. But when I pressed him: “Really? Like mainstream, average print journalists were saying this stuff?” He said, “Oh yeah, all of ‘em.”
None of this is to say “Clinton is worse than Trump.” I’m sure those same journalists would acknowledge that Trump is 100% unfit for any public office, let alone President of the freaking United States. Another Lyft driver in Philly — a man who immigrated from Africa only a few years ago — said he absolutely fears a Trump presidency. But he also has zero faith or trust in the Clintons. He’s enthusiastic about exactly no one.
What Now?
So here we are. Two historically unpopular candidates are now competing for President of the United States. One of them an outrageous reality show bigot, the other a Washington insider steeped in scandal. Meanwhile, one man — Julian Assange — and his organization may have the power to cause further game-changing disruptions in the months ahead. With one dump of DNC emails, they set the Democratic Convention on fire and caused the entire leadership of the party to step down. Perhaps there’s nothing more in his arsenal. Or perhaps the biggest revelations are yet to come.
One thing’s for sure. This election is unlike any other during my lifetime. And I grieve that the conversation for the next two months will no longer be about reforming our broken political system and revitalizing American democracy. Too often it will be a shouting match about building a wall or deleting emails or taco trucks or the next Guccifer 2.0 leak.
I’m ready for this election to be over. Who hasn’t made up their mind yet? Who honestly is “on the fence” anymore? It’s going to be a circus from here on out, and it’s a distraction from the real work that needs to be done.
I think the path forward for the progressive movement will be messier and less laser-focused than a Presidential election. We’ll all need to listen to our intuitions and go where our passion takes us. We’ll need to maintain a burning fire in our bellies in order to do the work that needs to be done.
Some will work on strengthening existing third parties — or building new ones altogether — so that one day we may finally break our two-party duopoly. Some will run for office as Democrats, hoping to reform the party from within, taking it over from the ground up all across America, hoping to break its dependency on the billionaire and corporate class. And some will return to the streets, to march and protest and block the construction of pipelines or support the passage of tuition-free college.
We need to be doing all these things, all at once.
Bernie did his part. He brought us all together. We can’t stop now. We’re only just beginning. I refuse to accept a dystopian future.
It’s on us to build the future we want. The game is up, the old systems are revealing themselves to be fraudulent. The consciousness that created those broken systems cannot solve them. It’s up to us.
We must dare to imagine radically new approaches to governance, economics, education, foreign policy, health care, energy…really everything. We are living through the final years of the Industrial Age, the age of oligarchy and winner-takes-all capitalism; a system which has as its only goal is the maximum accumulation of profit for those at the top. And with every year, the “way things are” make less and less sense to more and more human beings—particularly the interconnected digital natives of the Information Age.
I want to be a part of building bridges to that future. To that end, I’m going to begin work on a podcast project, in which myself and my good friend and futurist Gary Ruiz bring awareness to the academics, writers, and innovators who are already building those bridges — already creating the 21-century systems and visions for a truly sustainable, democratic, optimistic future for our planet.
At the same time, I will continue to do whatever I can to organize and volunteer at the local level for progressive issues and candidates. Bernie Sanders began his career as the mayor of Burlington. And at age 74 he activated an entire generation of Americans to follow in his footsteps. We need “Bernies” in every city in America, changing this country from the ground up.
It’s too late to be a cynic. It’s time to build our future.
Read the rest of my day-by-day account of the 2016 Democratic Convention:
The Political Revolution: An Ending and a Beginning
Inside the Convention: Day Zero
Inside the Convention: Day One
