Tuesday was the day of the roll call vote, the day a presidential nominee would officially be elected. As I grimaced at the sausage and eggs while picking up some fruit for breakfast, we were asked to fill out a sheet indicating the candidate we would vote for. As it turns out, the televised roll call vote would be all for show. The votes were effectively cast by breakfast. Sanders delegates were confused and upset. And the real vote for Democratic presidential nominee was over just like that.

As it turns out, the televised roll call vote would be all for show. The votes were effectively cast by breakfast.

That day my place was out in the streets with protesters at a Bernie Or Bust rally across from the Philadelphia City Hall, beside the Municipal Services Building. This would be the site of many of the protests throughout the week, very appropriately under the shadow of the Government Of The People statue, a dark bronze abstract stacking of hands, bodies, arms, limbs, holding each other up with two central figures lifting a large form overhead in the fashion of Atlas. The monument served as the backdrop to the stage, and the base was now draped in an OCCUPY THE DNC banner.

(Photo credit: Paula Olivares)

Up until that point, the reason I had been so vehemently Bernie Or Bust, and had shouted it at the top of my lung hoping that other delegates would join me when Bernie was speaking to delegates the day before, was because that was our leverage and our way to push Bernie to put up a fight for the nomination. If Bernie saw that the vast majority of his delegates wouldn’t get behind Hillary and that we would do everything we could to shatter the illusion of party unity, and more importantly signal that Hillary would likely not get enough general election support to actually beat Trump, I speculated that we might have a chance to have a real contested convention. But now it was too late, despite the thousands filling the square holding BERNIE OR BUST signs and in no way looking like they had lost.

I stood in the sweaty crowd dejected, wondering why I even went to Philly, and was tempted to spend the rest of the week outside with the protestors. The votes were cast, there was really no point of me even showing up to the convention, besides a penchant for masochism. Numb and still in shock after having all hope torn away, I didn’t know if I could bear the disgusting pageantry and commercialized pomp as the height of our plutocracy rubbed our faces in its devastating victory.

At one point a speaker asked who there was Bernie or Bust and every single one of the few thousand packed into the square raised their hands and voices. Those were the people, defiant in the face of all the odds, that ultimately gave me the determination and inspiration I needed to go back into the convention where media and Hillary supporters and police outnumbered us and were sure to steamroll any progressive resistance to the coronation. I began to feel it was a duty to go back into the belly of the less-evil beast to represent the voices and votes of these thousands of protesters who had no credentials.

Activist comedian Lee Camp lifted our spirits right before we had to leave with the right blend of dark humor and truth. “This is what matters!” he assured us. “This is what matters, not what happens in that convention center!” And I knew that, unfortunately, he was right. The majority of the people inside that building weren’t going to force the change we needed to fix our political system or to deal with climate change in time, they’d already proven that. They were more concerned with networking and taking selfies with Congresspeople. The progressive changes that are required are only going to come from people getting organized at the grassroots level and using people power to force our corrupt political system into action.

Back at the convention instead of watching the speeches I spent the pre-vote time inside the Wells Fargo Center giving interviews, cognizant that times are rare when every major media outlet in the country is in one place and willing to talk to grassroots progressive activists. After the first day the convention began to take on the feel of a mix between Hunger Games and The Truman Show. Hillary delegates and DNC coordinators did everything they could to be sure no Bernie signs were visible on TV. They would hide us with signs whenever possible, and they were even texted instructions for specific counter chants for when Bernie delegates began chanting. When the roll call votes began, Hillary delegates were sure to crowd around each state delegation chair microphone to prevent Bernie supporters from being seen by cameras.

The state delegation chairs and selected speakers began calling the vote tallies in alphabetical order in a dry procedural manner, each with dull state-specific descriptions and inane hyperpartisan cheerleading. The roll call vote got to California and there was a cacophony as Bernie delegates and Hillary delegates each chanted their respective candidate’s name, with neither name being discernible in the resulting mud of shouting. We watched from our state’s vantage as disruptions and protests broke out throughout the roll call. When Democrats Abroad read their tallies, Bernie’s brother Larry called the overseas Americans’ votes for his brother after tearfully speaking of what their parents would have thought to see Bernie come this far. The Sanders delegates chanted “Larry! Larry!” as the convention chair hurried to the next state.

For weeks leading up to the convention Sanders delegates had been talking online about a walk out following the roll call vote. I was unsure if it would be noticed or have much of an impact, but I figured I’d play it all by ear and join any protest that wasn’t absolutely foolish. I was hoping Bernie delegates would go in with a plan, but as is the perpetual plague of the grassroots left, communication logistics and fundamental disagreements in tactics and goals prevented any united front. So we went into the DNC with no real plan, which oftentimes works just as well.

When the roll call vote came to Georgia our Bernie delegates, making up less than a third of the state’s total delegates, began shouting Bernie’s name as loud as we could. On CNN shouts of “Bernie! Bernie!” were clearly audible before the delegation chair gave the microphone to John Lewis who called our state’s votes. And then the roll call vote moved on, repetitively, and increasingly depressing. When the vote came to Vermont, Bernie went up to the microphone and perplexed us by announcing that he was withholding the Vermont delegate votes. State by state it continued, and then was over. Hillary was announced the winner and many, if not most, Bernie delegates broke into tears as “Happy” blared throughout the stadium. It was as if they missed no opportunity to deliver one more slap in the face to Bernie delegates.

(Photo credit: Gretchen Quarterman)

We hugged each other and held hands in solidarity, apparently the only people in the building who understood or cared about what had been lost. The Georgia state Democratic Party chairman Dubose Porter then informed our delegation whips that if we didn’t take part in the walk out the state Democratic Party would help any of us if we ever ran for office. I’m not sure if this was intended as a sort of an olive branch, but it came off more as a threat. Most of the Georgia Sanders delegates walked out. About a third of the seats in the arena had emptied. It wasn’t the actual walkout that made the visual impact; it was the swaths of red empty seats throughout the stadium that highlighted the void that remained when progressives left the building.

Georgia Senate candidate and Berniecrat Jim Barksdale, who’d been sitting with the Bernie delegates, offered to talk with us if we didn’t walk out, but most still did. I took him up on his offer for a few minutes to ask him about his concerns, which were mostly economic, particularly raising the minimum wage. Rambling in a dazed shock following the official nomination, I expressed to him my concerns about climate change and fracking and what I thought had been lost that night for the Democratic Party. And then I walked out to join the other Bernie delegates protesting.

“This campaign is not about electing a president, it is about building a movement to transform this country…”

An ad hoc silent protest of Bernie delegates had formed in front of the media tent with dozens of delegates putting tape over their mouths and holding signs that read, “Silenced By The DNC” or “I’m With Nina!” Bernie surrogate Nina Turner, we had learned, was supposed to put Bernie’s name in for the nomination along with Tulsi Gabbard earlier that day, but at the last minute the DNC prevented her from speaking, presumably because she had not yet endorsed Hillary.

All throughout the halls and outside on the sidewalks and inside the media tent Sanders delegates were chanting or protesting or talking to reporters or rallying a march or heatedly debating with Hillary delegates, trying to express what had been lost by the nomination of Hillary Clinton over the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity the party had with Bernie Sanders. Hillary delegates were telling us we should vote for Hillary because she won and because Bernie endorsed her, but that wasn’t enough for us. We were highlighting a rift in the party that has always been there and has only grown deeper with time, while the goal of the Hillary delegates to ignore and cover up the divide only served to deepen it further.

Disappointed, on some level devastated, but still full of revolutionary outrage, a few delegates sat around smoking and commiserating on the sidewalk between the media tent and the convention entrance talking about how they had been treated by Hillary delegates. It seemed that pretty much every strong Bernie delegate we talked to had a story of petty disrespect, if not outright assault, from a Hillary delegate. A Clinton delegate repeatedly hit one Georgia delegate with a cane. Another of our Georgia delegates was even bitten in the ass by a Clinton delegate. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if it weren’t for three credible delegates corroborating the story. I really wouldn’t even have believed it if there were only two claiming it. Another Georgia delegate, a kind petite child speech therapist, had her Bernie sign ripped from her hands and torn in half by a Hillary delegate as she was refused access to the convention floor by security. Clinton delegates purposefully pushed me in the hallway and showed Sanders delegates as much respect as they would show a passing cockroach. And that was all before the party even officially had a nominee. Some amity between Sanders and Clinton delegates existed, but it was certainly rare.

We were highlighting a rift in the party that has always been there and has only grown deeper with time, while the goal of the Hillary delegates to ignore and cover up the divide only served to deepen it further.

If Bernie’s delegates at the DNC influenced anything though, it was through interviews with reporters and the conversations we had with Clinton delegates and powerful public officials who are rarely in a room with working class people or true progressive activists for anything other than a rare photo op.

As I was sending some tweets from the hallway an extremely frustrated reporter came up to me venting about his search for a Bernie delegate who was planning on voting for Hillary for an interview. I needed the laugh. I made a phone call to the only one I knew at the time and pointed him in the right direction.

I kept on through the halls in a dazed stupor until I ran into Bernie surrogates Josh Fox and then Nomiki Konst, the latter looking for the former, and I excitedly took a selfie with each. Nomiki mentioned getting drinks with them that night but then ran off to find Josh and get back to their state delegation. Later that night a Georgia delegate friend and I ran into them and they, in the midst of their own post-roll call vote despair, took us up on an offer to give them a ride to their hotel. On the long walk to the car a Black Lives Matter march showed up alongside the convention fences, so naturally we joined it. A dreadlocked man with a megaphone was in the back of a pickup truck speaking out to the few hundred people surrounding it: “Fuck Hillary Clinton! Fuck Bernie Sanders! Fuck Jill Stein! People power!”

It wasn’t long before a massive Bernie or Bust/Jill Stein march showed up to the same location, and the two marches merged, continuing down the street. Josh was aggravated over everything and started walking away cursing Jill Stein. We followed and walked a few miles to the car talking with Josh about Jill Stein and his new movie and drone cameras. There wasn’t a person in the convention — besides Bernie — that I wanted to meet more than those two, and they were as awesome and humble as I could’ve hoped. As we dropped them off, Josh told us he’d text the address for a party that night.

An hour later we were at the Climate Hawk Party drinking and eating the most delicious seitan wings on the second floor of Fergie’s Pub with some of Bernie’s national campaign staff and dozens of amazing climate organizers from all over the country. Josh and Nomiki eventually showed up and everyone drank it all out together. I found it nothing short of a miracle that I was drinking with Josh Fox, Nomiki Konst, climate-concerned Bernie staff and delegates from all over the country, and other amazing climate activists including people like Anthony Rogers-Wright whose compelling testimony for the Democratic Platform Committee had so impressed and inspired me a few weeks earlier.

Climate activists, and the climate-informed and politically aware, have added layers of despair and hopelessness on top of the general feeling that our representative democracy may be beyond repair. And climate was the area where Bernie’s campaign lost big on the platform. The only one of Bill McKibben’s original amendments that passed was one that supported more bike paths. Hillary’s Platform Committee members shot down a carbon tax, a ban on Liquid Natural Gas export, a moratorium on fracking, keep it in the ground language, and more — and the platform is non-binding, purely symbolic and aspirational. Climate activists, of all people, had good reason to drink that night. Luckily there was an open bar.

Once everyone was at least half drunk, people began standing on a table making speeches. The organizer of the party, Brad Johnson of Climate Hawks Vote, was saying, “It’s the fossil fuel industry or it’s us! It’s gonna hurt! There’s gonna be suffering! There’s gonna be pain! We’re going to lose friends! And every single day we have to get up and fight!” Someone in the crowd shouted, “Because we’re gonna win!” From the tabletop Brad replied, “We have to fight whether we win or not — because it’s the only thing we can do!” After he took a moment to thank Bernie Sanders, the bar shook with drunken chants of “Bernie! Bernie!” He then went on to push the importance of pressuring all elected officials on climate issues and of getting climate hawks elected to office.

“We have to fight whether we win or not — because it’s the only thing we can do!”

Anthony Rogers-Wright of Environmental Action said a few words and, after raucous cheers, Josh Fox took the table and got a little movement-sentimental talking about where we go from here. “I want to ban fracking in the next five years! I want to change the system! So how do we do this? We keep our power! We keep our power and we make our demands… When she’s five points behind Donald Trump in August, that’s when we make our demands!” and the plastered climate hawks went crazy. “I don’t like this, I don’t like this at all, but you have to understand! This is the moment we have power!” When he had wrapped up his speech we started pounding tables and chanting, “It’s up to us! It’s up to us!” like a war chant. The regular patrons of the bar downstairs must have been perplexed.

Eventually the bar closed and kicked us out. We milled around for a while out front where Josh was on top of a concrete barrier balancing on one leg with a shot glass on his head as we cheered him on. Our drunken horde of climate activists then stumbled down the street and into the Marriott bar, which was still serving drinks. Before we went in, Nomiki was stumbling around putting her shoes on in the street yelling, “When we go in here we have to act like normal people!” I laughed hysterically, realizing that, for the first time in my life, I had found my tribe. The rest of the night was an enriching and infinitely inspirational blur.