M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Letter from Philadelphia Life Among the Berned How long can you hold onto a hope? On the convention floor, that argument got personal.

Julia Ioffe is contributing writer at Politico Magazine.

“I hope you realize the irony of what she’s doing,” Paul Czisny, a Wisconsin delegate for Bernie Sanders, said, nodding his head backward at a young woman in the stands, a piece of white tape across her mouth that said in stark black letters SILENCED. Periodically, she stood up and photographers rushed over, camera shutters whirring, to snap her admittedly very dramatic portrait.

“She’s able to vote, she’s able to get elected as a delegate, she’s able to come here,” Czisny rolled his eyes. He’s as pissed off as anyone about the business of the Democratic National Committee emails—“it just feeds the frustrations of the Bernie people”—but he was frustrated with people like that young woman. “Unfortunately, all they’re doing is aiding the Trump camp,” he said. “Virtually no one here”—meaning the Bernie delegates—“is going to vote for Trump, but will they stay home? Will they vote for Jill Stein [of the Green Party]? I find this maddening because we’ve seen this movie before, and if we think Bush was a disaster, Trump will be an even bigger disaster.”


Like the other Bernie supporters in the Wisconsin delegation, he doesn’t love Hillary Clinton, but he would do the adult thing and vote for her come November. “Because I’m not selfish,” says 22-year-old Bernie activist Hailey Storsved, who led the student movement for Sanders at her university. “It’s kind of like saying, ‘I’m taking my ball and going home.’”

Monday night's Democratic National Convention felt, at times, like an unsettled argument—a restive Sanders contingent looking for opportunities to boo the primary opponent he'd been railing against for months, and boo everyone she'd invited to support her. But a big part of the argument was underway within the Sanders camp itself: How long to hold out against your own party's nominee? This is politics, after all: At what point did principle become a kind of vanity?

At what point does principle become a kind of vanity?

I tried to talk to the young woman with the tape over her mouth, but she refused to communicate, silenced as she was. Instead, she showed me a Facebook post she wrote. “The DNC is threatening that they might pull my credentials if I don’t take this off,” she wrote of her mouth tape. Her name is Angie Aker. “They want to truly silence me. They don’t even want me to have this much free speech.”

A follow-up question about who she was and why she felt silenced resulted in her showing me her screen: another Facebook post. “FOR THE MEDIA LOOKING FOR CONTEXT ON MY “SILENCED” CRY FOR HELP: the establishment wants us to lie for them and say we are behind Hillary when it’s clear there hasn’t even been a fair primary,” she wrote. “I’m desperate to show somehow it’s not true.”

Then she ran out of Facebook posts to show me, and commandeered my notepad to scribble me notes, like a modern Beethoven. “Everyone has to vote their conscience,” she wrote, echoing Ted Cruz at last week’s Republican convention. “I don’t know who I’ll vote for. But I know I won’t cast my vote out of fear anymore.”

“We’re talking about the political maturation of left-wing politics,” said Peter Rickman, a young man leading the Wisconsin delegation, a longtime left-wing activist, and a Sanders supporter. He was going to get behind Clinton, rallying fellow Bernie-ites to her side because, as he said, “We don’t need to love Hillary, but we need to mobilize so that, after November, we’re fighting for a progressive agenda under a Clinton White House and not being on the defensive in a proto-fascist regime.” When I asked him about the silenced woman in his delegation, he too rolled his eyes at Aker. He leaned in conspiratorially. “She runs Upworthy,” he said, referring to the social media site. “Soon someone is going to put two and two together that she’s just doing this to get personal attention.” (Aker actually works in video licensing for the site.)

There was a periodic booing from behind the very polite and very pragmatic Wisconsin delegation, most of whom seemed at peace with the need to vote for Clinton in the fall. “Oh, that’s not us,” one of them told me. “That’s New Mexico.”

Up a few rows was the New Mexico delegation, which was in the thick of a civil war.

“No, never,” said a young man named Rusty Pearce, a Sanders delegate from the state. “This is a political revolution and a political revolution doesn’t just stop.”

“We will continue to work to elect progressives up and down the ticket,” said a freckled middle-aged woman named Nicole Renee Peters. She also wasn’t voting for Hillary. “I’m not for Hillary and I’m not for Trump,” she said defiantly. “I will never vote for Hillary.” Most of their state delegation, they both told me confidently, was for Sanders and felt the same way.

“Unfortunately, that’s not true,” chimed in an older woman named Theresa Trujeque standing next to me with a Hillary sign. “The majority is for Hillary.” Twenty-four delegates out of 43 were for Hillary.

“That’s with the superdelegates!” Peters and Pearce interjected.

After some squabbling and eye-rolling at me—Can you believe her? Can you believe these two?—they agreed that there were 18 delegates for Hillary and 16 for Bernie.

“They’ve been telling us to shut up all day,” Peters complained to me.

“They’ve been fighting and booing all day,” Trujeque complained to me.

They’ve been telling us to shut up all day,” a Sanders delegate complained to me.



“They’ve been fighting and booing all day,” a Clinton delegate complained to me.

“They don’t respect us,” Peters nearly yelled.

“They’ve been fighting with the poor delegates with Indiana,” Trujeque scolded. “It’s not respectable.”

“Well, I don’t find it respectable that Hillary Clinton lied under oath!”

“In the Democratic Party, there’s room for disagreement,” Peters insisted. “Instead you’re exercising fascism.”

“I’ve been involved in the Democratic Party for years and there’s no fraud, no corruption we take care of everyone. Some people have never been involved.”

Sarah Silverman to ‘Bernie or bust’ people: “You’re being ridiculous”

“I’ve been involved for many years!”

“Well, I’ve never seen you!”

“That’s because I’ve lived in New Mexico for almost a whole year!”

“Well, then don’t try to change us New Mexicans!”

The Bernie people told me elaborate tales of how the DNC outfoxed and cheated them at every turn—and there were very many turns, so many we had to keep going over them for clarity until they pointed defiantly to a young man, the communications director for the New Mexico delegation, eyeing them nervously. “He’s going to take our credentials away as soon as this interview is over!” one of them said. It was the first the young man, named Joe Kaburek, heard of it. “We need to do a better job of talking to them,” he said diplomatically.

In Cleveland, a Cruz underground refused to concede and get behind the party’s nominee, and their candidate gave them the satisfaction of a principled last stand: He refused to endorse a man they loathed with every fiber of their being. In Philadelphia, the Bernie holdouts had no such luck. Their man endorsed a woman they loathe with every fiber of their being, and asked them to vote for her in November. Instead of getting booed, like Cruz, they were the ones doing the booing. They booed Lilly Ledbetter, they booed Cory Booker, and they managed to refrain from booing Michelle Obama. When Elizabeth Warren spoke, the Bernie holdouts of Michigan sat there in grim anger, arms crossed, fake birds pinned to their hats. They liked Warren, but didn’t like that she was selling out to Hillary. “Not for sale!” some of them yelled.

They booed Lily Ledbetter, they booed Cory Booker, and they managed to refrain from booing Michelle Obama.



When Elizabeth Warren spoke, the Bernie hold-outs of Michigan sat there in grim anger. “Not for sale!” some of them yelled.



When Bernie emerged on stage, they screamed his name and his slogans—“This is what democracy looks like!” Many of them cried and refused to believe it was over. “It’s not over!” some of them shouted. “Nooooo!” others hollered. Up and down this Midwestern section, Bernie supporters who so reviled superdelegates were praying for them to see the light and switch to Bernie’s side Tuesday, thereby annulling the popular vote of the Democratic primary, which had not been in their favor. “You never know how many people have turned since WikiLeaks!” one Michigan delegate told the correspondent of Michigan Radio. She held out hope that Tuesday's vote would tilt toward Bernie.

“Are you going to vote for Hillary in November?” the reporter asked her.

“I’m voting for Bernie tomorrow,” she said, defiantly. “He asked us to vote for him tomorrow.”

“He also asked for you to vote for Hillary in November,” the reporter pressed.

“I’m voting for Bernie tomorrow!”

Nearby, a schoolteacher named Tammy Lewis sat weeping softly. “We’ll never have a chance like this again,” she said, dabbing her dark eyes with a white tissue. Her husband, she said, was a NAFTA victim and she wasn’t about to let TPP destroy her family a second time. But she was at a loss after Bernie’s speech. “He’s doing what he has to do,” she said with a melancholy admiration. “He knows he has to stop Trump. He’s a good man.”

“I’m voting for Bernie tomorrow, that’s what I came here to do,” she said with a quiet sadness. Would she vote for Hillary in the fall, as Bernie had asked of her? “Maybe,” she said, lost. “I don’t know. I know I have to stop Trump, too. But the choice is either I press the pause button or go back in time with Trump.” She rose to leave and wiped her eyes.

“It’s not what I wanted,” she said, and left the hall.