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Adam C. Smith: Bernie Sanders supporters invoke mayhem but to what end?

 
Supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders silently protest at the Wells Fargo Center on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday.  Sanders asked for support for Hillary Clinton and was booed.
Supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders silently protest at the Wells Fargo Center on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday. Sanders asked for support for Hillary Clinton and was booed.
Published July 26, 2016

PHILADELPHIA — The Democratic National Convention looked like it would be a layup for Hillary Clinton after the Ted Cruz jeers, the mob-like "Lock her up!" chants, and the apocalyptic portrait of America painted by Donald Trump last week. Democrats merely needed to show themselves to be reasonably sane, unified, optimistic and competent to come out ahead.

Instead, Bernie Sanders supporters decided the smart play was to boo when Sanders urged support for the presumptive Democratic nominee, chant "Lock her up" when Clinton's name was mentioned at a downtown rally, and heckle U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings as he spoke about his dead father. Just in case some television viewers disagreed with Trump that America was beset by mayhem and lawlessness, Sanders supporters did their part to make his case.

"If they fraudulently push Hillary forward, Trump will be our president. There has been voter suppression and voter fraud and if it had been covered on the news you might know about it," said Angelique Orman, 44, of Oregon, who did not care about Sanders' call for unity.

"This has now gone beyond him. It's bigger than him," Orman said. "It's a conscious revolution and every American should thank their lucky stars for that because things are about to change."

Her general sentiments are surprisingly common among Sanders fans converging in Philly this week.

They've succeeded in pushing Clinton considerably leftward, ensuring that the former free-traders leading the ticket now suddenly oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and pushing the party to revamp its nominating process so party elites will have less influence.

Now the Sanders political revolutionaries appear to be moving on to more nebulous goals. The Democratic Socialist has become too pragmatic for them.

What do they want? Not entirely clear.

"When is Hillary Clinton going to come out and say I absolutely reject this idea that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is fiddling with this election behind the scenes?" fumed Samantha Herring, a Sanders delegate from Walton County in the Florida Panhandle.

The leaked emails showing some leading Democratic National Committee employees didn't care for Sanders and even wanted to encourage negative news stories about the Vermont senator have been seized on as evidence of some sort of epic corruption scandal.

This is absurd.

If any ardent Sanders supporters actually believed ousted DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's repeated claims this year that she was neutral in the Democratic primary, I have a Liberty Bell I'd like to sell them.

This may come as an utter shock, but political party leaders are likely to be biased in favor of people who have been loyal to that party. Sanders, until recently, did not even consider himself to be a member of the Democratic Party, let alone work for years to build and grow it.

Does anybody really think nobody within the Republican National Committee ever emailed a negative thought about Donald Trump this year?

No, it's not right for national party leaders to encourage news articles questioning Sanders' faith (a perfectly reasonable question, by the way) or privately scoff at his political viability. Nor is it the slightest bit surprising — unlike, say, a campaign improperly breaching another's voter data, as Sanders' campaign did with Clinton's.

There is no evidence anti-Sanders bias within the DNC actually damaged his insurgent campaign. When everybody assumed Clinton was a shoo-in, the DNC seemed to go out of its way to schedule primary debates so as few people as possible would see them, but that probably wound up hurting Clinton, who usually excels in debates.

In the end, the surprisingly rocky start to the Democratic National Convention may amount to nothing. The vast majority of voters could care less whether Wasserman Schultz gavelled the convention open. But it's also true that the Clinton vs. Trump race at this point looks razor close, and the unruly Sanders stepped on one of Clinton's best and last opportunities to tell her story just as she wanted.

If nothing else, the dissent from Sanders fans exposed just how unenthusiastic much of the Democratic base is about the nominee. It's an ominous sign for Democrats.

"We hear a lot that if we don't support Hillary, it's going to be our fault if Trump wins. That shouldn't be the discussion. It shouldn't be on us to elect Hillary Clinton, it should be on her to earn our vote, and at this point it doesn't seem like she has achieved that," said Nina Sherwood, a 32-year-old Sanders supporter from Stanford, Conn., who doubts Clinton's commitment to regulating banks.

On the floor of the Wells Fargo Center before Sanders spoke Monday night, Hillsborough County Democratic chairman Alan Clendenin, a strong Clinton supporter, talked unity with some avid Sanders backers.

"I have something to ask you all: After Bernie speaks and he's done, everybody should be on the same team, okay?"

"Well, we can talk about that Thursday," responded Herring, the Sanders delegate from Walton County.

Contact Adam C. Smith at asmith@tampabay.com. Follow @adamsmithtimes.