DNC Protesters United Against a Common Enemy (And it’s not Trump)
“Hell no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary!”
“Our enemy is the DNC!”
PHILADELPHIA — Protesters at Thursday’s rally in Philadelphia’s FDR Park were upset with a lot of things. They lashed out at Hillary Clinton, the DNC, the media, the wealthy, and essentially everything that isn’t Senator Bernie Sanders, or the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein. Notably absent from their discourse was any mention of Republican nominee Donald Trump. This is the Democratic National Convention after all, and as such you’d expect the protests to be focused on the Democratic party, but in a climate of protest that was extremely precise about who the enemy was — Hillary Clinton and the DNC — who the hero was, was more unclear.
At the RNC last week, a common response to the question, “Why Trump?” was: He’s not Hillary Clinton. In the protest area of Cleveland’s Public Square, Clinton’s visage was everywhere, in varying degrees of flattery and accuracy. The proverbial line in the sand, then, was very clear — Trump was the hero, and Clinton the enemy. This quality was lacking at tonight’s protests in Philadelphia, and no one seemed all that concerned about Trump. As protester Dane C. Posner from Houston, Texas told me, “We’re not going to be scared into voting for someone we don’t believe in, for fear of a candidate we don’t believe in. It’s flawed logic. There are millions of us that donated to his [Bernie’s] campaign, from a grassroots standpoint, because we believed in his message, and the Democrats have undemocratically stomped on our votes, and said that our voices do not matter.”
Another protester continued, “We worked to get him where he is, and then they just stomped him down.”
When I brought up Donald Trump, Posner said, “Trump is a Clinton plant. If you try and push a boogie man like Donald Trump, more people are going to flock to the opposition.” I then asked what he thought about Bernie’s endorsement and support of Hillary Clinton. Posner replied, “Bernie agreed to the Democratic Party’s terms and conditions because he believed it would be a fair election, and he believed his supporters would be given an equal voice. That hasn’t turned out to be true. Being a man of integrity, he followed through on his commitment, but he’s said time and again: this is more than one man. He’s started a revolution and it doesn’t end with Bernie Sanders, or the Democratic Party.”
Most of the protesters in FDR Park Thursday night were supporting the #DemExit movement — a movement centered on reregistering Democrat voters as members of the Green Party, and raising up that party’s candidate, Dr. Jill Stein, as the new face of Bernie Sanders’ revolution. Dozens of times throughout the night it was promised, over megaphones, personal conversations, and shouts, that pro-Bernie delegates would stage a walk-out just before Hillary’s speech, march en masse from the Wells Fargo Center through the gates towards the protesters, and reregister as members of the Green Party, and support Jill Stein. This moment, historic as it undoubtably would have been, did not come.
“Our delegates have been silenced. In a matter of minutes, Hillary Clinton will give her acceptance speech, and all of our delegates, who have nothing left to lose, will be walking out. This is DemExit 2016.” — DemExit protester on a megaphone
As the protests went on, neither the late hour nor the falling rain seemed to cut even a handful of protesters from the ranks, and the chants became more pointed and profane: Hillary Sucks, and We Got Fucked! And, Unite. Convict. We’re Sick of All This Shit!
But the promised walk-out never came. A mass of Democratic delegates didn’t come to publicly shift their affiliation to the Green Party and get behind Jill Stein, leaving the political realities at the end of the night the way they’ve been all week: our presidential race is between two candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. For the DemExit protesters, who’ve chosen many enemies and few friends, I wonder what their impact on this election will ultimately be, and if that impact will align with their revolution, or not.
