{"id":1195,"date":"2016-07-26T14:30:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T13:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2016-07-26T14:30:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T13:30:57","slug":"day-5-bernie-sanders-gives-the-speech-of-a-lifetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/day-5-bernie-sanders-gives-the-speech-of-a-lifetime\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 5: Bernie Sanders gives the speech of a lifetime"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first night of the Democratic National Convention began badly. \u00a0The first speaker was a woman minister and all went very well until she mentioned the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton. \u00a0And then the chanting began. \u00a0“Bernie! Bernie!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, I understand some of that anger. \u00a0Hillary was not last night, and is still not this morning, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. \u00a0She will become the party’s candidate only after a roll call vote of delegates is taken. \u00a0Yes, she will win that vote. \u00a0But declaring the race over now is insulting to the nearly 2,000 delegates who are pledged to Bernie Sanders. \u00a0Speakers should have shown more respect to both candidates, and not ignored those delegates or the 13 million voters they represent.<\/p>\n

But over the course of the evening, things began to change. \u00a0Every time Clinton’s name was mentioned, there was chanting. \u00a0Tim Kaine’s name also triggered this. \u00a0And when the platform came up — a platform which disgracefully does not call for blocking the anti-worker trade agreement known as TPP — there was booing and chanting, with hundreds of delegates waving anti-TPP and Bernie placards. \u00a0As they should have done.<\/p>\n

By about 22:00, tiredness was starting to set in. \u00a0And the point had been made. \u00a0And then the Democratic party leadership finally showed it had some brains. \u00a0It scheduled a series of speakers to wrap up the evening — Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Senator Elizabeth Warren who wowed the crowd, including the Sanders delegates.<\/p>\n

Obama was especially powerful. \u00a0Her message about what it feels like to raise two beautiful Black daughters in a house built by slaves — the White House — silenced everyone, and moved everyone. \u00a0I was not alone to wipe tears from my eyes as I heard her speak.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Warren is an iconic figure for the American left. \u00a0She was not booed, not interrupted, and was treated like Obama with great respect. \u00a0Her support for Clinton was forceful and convincing. \u00a0The cold, intellectual case for backing Clinton had been made.<\/p>\n

So it was a much calmer hall, and people much more focussed on stopping Donald Trump, by the time Bernie Sanders was introduced at nearly 23:00.<\/p>\n

And even though people were exhausted — for most, the day began with breakfast meetings at 07:00 — the crowd went absolutely wild, everyone on their feet, all chanting. \u00a0If there were Clinton supporters in the hall, you wouldn’t have known it. \u00a0Maybe they were chanting “Bernie! Bernie!” too. \u00a0It took Sanders several minutes to calm everyone down.<\/p>\n

And then he proceeded to talk about what has happened in the last year, where we stand now and what we must do next.<\/p>\n

It was the speech of a lifetime.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It showed the greatness of this American politician because he is a man who is not only able to rally millions of people to social change, to feed off their anger and to be their voice. \u00a0He also knows when to say: we have come this far, but no further tonight. \u00a0This is where we stop, we pause, we think about what needs to be done next.<\/p>\n

And what needs to be done right now, over the next hundred or so days, is to work day and night to ensure that Donald J. Trump is not elected the next President of the United States.<\/p>\n

A lesser politician would not have been able to do this. \u00a0To speak to a crowd which only an hour earlier roared with anger at the mention of Clinton’s name, and to tell them: we must vote for this person and we must campaign for her.<\/p>\n

This is what leadership is all about. \u00a0This was the most extraordinary example of leadership we saw last night, and maybe all year. \u00a0This was a man telling a painful truth to his followers, talking straight, pulling no punches.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not everyone will be convinced, of course. \u00a0There are “Bernie or Bust” supporters who will no doubt be out in the streets today. \u00a0But they are a small and dwindling minority. \u00a0Most of us listened carefully to what Bernie had to say, and are convinced.<\/p>\n

As the Clinton campaign slogan goes, “He’s with her”.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I’m with him.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first night of the Democratic National Convention began badly. \u00a0The first speaker was a woman minister and all went very well until she mentioned the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton. \u00a0And then the chanting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dnc-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1196,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericlee.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}