WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dismissing the growing chorus urging him to drop out of the Democratic primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is calling on his supporters to stand by him until the bitter end — or at least until Tuesday, when Washington, D.C. holds the country’s final Democratic primary.
“It would be extraordinary if the people of Washington, our nation’s capitol, stood up and told the world that they are ready to lead this country into a political revolution,” Sanders told a screaming crowd of a few hundred people gathered in a skate park on the far edge of Capitol Hill on Thursday night. “Together, we are going to change our national priorities.”
Though Hillary Clinton claimed victory last week, and President Obama has endorsed her as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, Sanders is not yet willing concede the race.
Instead, Sanders told Meet The Press’ Chuck Todd only that he will be meeting with Clinton Tuesday night to talk about her campaign and the threat of Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
“I simply want to get a sense of what kind of platform she will be supporting, whether she will be vigorous in standing up for working families and the middle class, moving aggressively on climate change, healthcare for all, making public colleges and universities tuition-free,” he said Sunday. “And after we have that kind of discussion and after we can determine whether or not we are going to have a strong and progressive platform, I will be able to make other decisions.” But even as he continues to fight, he and his millions of supporters are now publicly grappling with the choices ahead of them.
Some Sanders supporters say they can never bring themselves to vote for Clinton, while others insist that uniting behind her is necessary to defeat Donald Trump. Some are considering voting for a third party candidate, such as Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein, while others say they will write in Sanders’ name if he’s not on the ballot in November.
Though Clinton is insurmountably far ahead of Sanders not only in the controversial delegate system but also in the popular vote, Sanders pointed to his popularity among students and younger voters as evidence that the represents the future of the Democratic Party.
“What seems radical today will seem mainstream tomorrow if we stand together,” he assured the crowd on Thursday.
Whether Sanders’ millions of supporters are willing to wait for that brighter future, or whether they will try to build it outside the Democratic Party, remains to be seen.
#NeverHillary and #StillSanders
A new poll conducted by the Guardian found that a large number of Sanders supporters, more than 40 percent, are willing to shift their votes to Clinton. But many at Thursday’s rally in D.C. were vehemently opposed to this option, and said there is nothing Clinton can do at this point to earn their vote.
“Hillary has a hidden agenda. I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t trust her,” said Marion Fox, a DC public elementary school teacher. “The way she speaks to people, she could never win me over at all.”
April Washington, a student at George Washington University, agreed that she felt Clinton was being dishonest. “Whether you want to call it flip-flop, misspoke, or evolve, or an unfortunate choice of words, she is consistent about being inconsistent,” she said. “I can’t go for a person like that. I value my vote and it’s going to go to the candidate I truly believe in.”
Both Fox and Washington told ThinkProgress they plan to write in Sanders’ name this November if he is not on the ballot. “Some people consider that throwing your vote away, but I say, my principles didn’t change just because my candidate didn’t win,” Washington said.
Washington and several others at Sanders’ rally said they had felt alienated from the political process before Sanders declared his candidacy. As he prepares to bow out, they feel alienated once more. “The establishment has tried to shut us out at every turn,” she said. “From war to jobs to health care to education, it just doesn’t seem like our concerns are of concern to the politicians that we voted into office. It’s not a true democracy.”
The Sanders surrogates at Thursday’s D.C. rally spoke directly to this frustration and disappointment, and offered no kind words about Clinton.
“Don’t let corporate media convince you that simply because you’re not crazy about the milquetoast, neoliberal Hillary that there’s something wrong with you,” railed scholar and civil rights activist Dr. Cornell West. While he emphasized he has no love for Trump, calling him a “neo-fascist,” he blasted Clinton as a “corporate feminist” and said he would prefer a candidate “who loves women who are poor and working class around the world.”
Uniting against the Donald
Sanders’ supporters in Congress have in the last few days begun urging Sanders and his supporters to back Clinton in the general election.
“This is the moment when we need to start bringing parts of the party together so they can go into the convention with locked arms and go out of the convention unified into the general election,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the lone senator to publicly endorse Sanders.
Many who supported Sanders in the primary told ThinkProgress they are willing to unite behind Clinton in the general election, especially if she makes a concerted effort to reach out to progressives and respond to their demands.
Autumn Strawderman, an Alexandria, Virginia resident who came to the rally with her infant son Cassius strapped to her front, said she wants Clinton to assure Sanders supporters that “he’ll have an awesome place in her cabinet, somewhere” and that “he’s going to be at the very head of working with her for the next four years.”
Yet even without these assurances, Strawderman said she sees the necessity of casting a vote for Clinton. “In the end, I want anything but Trump,” she said. “If Bernie were dropping out, that’s it. I’d have to [back Hillary].”
For many voters, fear of a Trump presidency outweighs all concerns about Clinton’s policies and ideology.
“I don’t want to see Trump in the White House. The guy’s a fascist,” said Evan Nemoff, a graduate student at American University in D.C. “All of his rhetoric is divisive, it’s racially charged, it’s xenophobic. He doesn’t even have a grasp of the world. The idea of him meeting with world leaders, leading armed forces is scary.”
Faced with the threat of Trump winning the race, Nemoff said of Sanders: “I think he should continue to speak out on the issues on the election cycle but it’s inevitable that he’s not going to be the nominee so he should throw his support around Hillary.”
My way, or a third way
Third-party candidates, especially the Green Party nominee Jill Stein, are actively courting disappointed Sanders supporters. Stein has even put out a public invitation to Sanders to run with her on the Green Party ticket, though Sanders has shown no signs of interest in this option.
Several Sanders supporters say they are interested in supporting Stein, but only if they are confident that splitting the vote won’t aid Trump’s campaign.
“If it’s a close race, polling at 2 percent or so, I’ll go for Hillary,” said Georgia resident Christopher Philbeck. “If not, I’ll go for Jill Stein because she lines up with my beliefs.”
Others say the choice comes down to Clinton’s actions in the coming months. “I want Hillary to pledge to get corporate money out of politics, end corporate subsidies and trade agreements that promote outsourcing American manufacturing, protect the environment, and end mass incarceration and racist policing,” listed Jeremy John, a writer and father of two from Indianapolis, Indiana. If not, he added, “I will vote third party if Hillary moves to the right to pick up disaffected Republicans during the general election instead of uniting the party by appealing to progressives.”
Others, including Adam Pitts from Poolesville, Maryland, support Sanders mounting his own third-party presidential bid. “I’m never, ever going to vote for Hillary, and I’m never, ever going to vote Trump,” he declared.
For the last year, Pitts has traveled up and down the East Coast to hear Sanders speak, and has made lasting friendships with other “Bern-ers” in the process. “It’s been pretty eye-opening,” he said. “Before Bernie, I never knew any of these activist networks existed. I wanted nothing to do with our system. But then he came along, and started talking about climate change and getting money out of politics, and that was the linchpin for me. So now, I want to keep pushing Bernie’s platform and making sure this movement is heard.”
Pitts and thousands of others plan to protest outside the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this July, demanding changes to the party platform and the voting process itself.
Pitts told ThinkProgress said his message to Democratic Party leaders will be: “You can’t ignore us. You can’t pretend we don’t exist. We’re going to be outside your convention. We’re going to be everywhere you are.”
John, who also plans to protest outside the DNC, said Sanders can wield more influence by refusing to concede.
“Bernie has an obligation to the ideas and donors of his campaign to stay in the race and take his ideas to the Democratic Convention in July, said John. “He should threaten a third-party candidacy if at least some of his ideas are not adopted as part of the party platform.”
Sanders already successfully pressured the DNC to allow him to appoint several firebrand progressives to the committee drafting the Democratic Party platform, including Dr. Cornell West, environmentalist Bill McKibben, and Arab-American Institute President James Zogby. Together with allies of Clinton, they will craft the stated vision of the next four years of the party.
Valcy Etienne contributed to this report.