Bernie Sanders supporters are slowly coming to terms with the idea that their candidate will never headline the Democratic National Convention while the majority of Democrats are still alive.
This weekend, though, they gathered at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, Ill., to compare Sanders paraphernalia, discuss how best to come to terms with Bernie’s loss, and learn how to keep up momentum in their fledgling socialist movement.
Bernie Con—or rather, the “People’s Summit”—brought 2,000 “Berniecrats” together from across the country to a three-day summit put on by the National Nurses United, a major union that’s backed Bernie from the beginning.
The event drew a huge cross section of Sanders supporters and surrogates, from hardcore Communist agitators, to Sanders strategists, to celebrities like Rosario Dawson, to members of Congress and talking heads like Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King. It also drew quite a few Bernie-esque relics of the 1960s, like liberal legend Frances Fox Piven, who haven’t been this excited about something since Woodstock.
They shared good news and bad news. The good news? “It’s a lot easier now to talk to people about socialism,” one actual socialist told the Washington Post. The bad news? Their dreams of electoral superiority have come to a crashing —and crushing—halt: “We are grieving political losses, dreams tantalizingly tasted but ultimately unrealized,” progressive activist Naomi Klein told an opening night panel.
But while Bernie may be burning through $38,000 in taxpayer money per day extending his fantasy ad infinitum, his supporters are coping as best they can using the tools at their disposal.
Some enjoyed panels on how to take money from rich people using government resources. Some grooved out to the dulcet tones of Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles blaring over the sound system. Some exhibited grand ambition (particularly attendees at the “Ending Voter Suppression, Mass Incarceration, Deportations and Gender Inequality” discussion group—that’s quite the agenda), and some played politically themed versions of Twister.
Because, why not?
Some, of course, spent their time learning practical skills for DNC survival.
But if the agenda was to form a powerful political movement in the wake of Sanders’ impending concession, the People’s Summit had a lot of work to do. Most attendees didn’t seem to be armed with ideas, as much as they were armed with theories on why their national movement didn’t succeed. (Hint: Clinton “stole” the election, though it’s not clear how.)
The most popular idea to combat Clinton’s influence seemed to a “fart-in,” announced in conjunction with the People’s Summit, and timed to coincide with Clinton’s DNC acceptance speech. Not exactly the work of a crack team of strategists.
There wasn’t even much of an agenda outside of issues that have been important to progressives for years. Donald Trump, the top target for progressives in the 2016 election, didn’t even figure into panel discussions. Most of the weekend’s activists preferred to just assume Clinton would win the nomination, giving them eight years to build their movement while she held the Oval Office
In fact, Clinton might have even been a more controversial figure than Trump. Some Sanders supporters were a bit hostile on Clinton courting the progressive left. A few even decried the People’s Summit itself, calling requests for support from party Democrats a “very negative dialogue.” One activist called the summit “a lot like a Dem-connected event… to keep enthusiastic Sanders supporters in the party.”
But they all agreed, at least, that Simon and Garfunkel set just the right mood for revolution.