Swati Shastry, a student at Bryn Mawr college, explained that, “There’s a difference between critiquing the systems and powers that are in place—and being nihilistic and being pessimistic.”

Victor Garcia, a Sanders enthusiast who currently attends the University of California, Santa Barbara, conceded that “Secretary Clinton is the best we can do now,” but that it was up to the former Sanders supporters “to strive for better and to push her to do better.”

Many of these Millennials saw no particular problem in once loudly criticizing the status quo and now supporting an institutional candidate who very well may preserve it. This, apparently, is democracy in an age that’s equally fascinated with Snapchat and George R. R. Martin—forms of entertainment that are either very short and light on specifics, or very long and extraordinarily detailed. Contradiction is just part of the 21st-century political lexicon, and they are embracing it.

Kendrick Sampson, an actor and prominent Sanders booster, told me: “We have an either-or society … and that’s not how humans work.” He explained that, “You can only go so far with spreading awareness and yelling at people. But that’s important, to make sure you show people that you’re angry, that you’re fed up with the system and that it needs to change. And then you need to have a seat at the table. To influence policy … You can’t just have a fight, you have to have a solution.”

I asked Kashimana Ahua—a recently naturalized U.S. citizen from Nigeria and delegate to the convention from Minnesota, who was resplendent in Sanders buttons—why she wasn’t out on the streets protesting Clinton’s coronation, but instead inside the convention hall. “I’m both,” she said. “I can be out on the streets, and in the building. I believe you have to have both in order to make a change that helps everybody.”

Then she added: “We come from a generation… [where] we understand that you don’t have to be one or the other.”

As if proving this point, hours later Victor Garcia was to be found protesting on the streets—following his exit from the Youth Council meeting at the DNC. Here he was, literally, being both things: disruptive and dutiful. By way of an explanation, Garcia offered: “When there’s pressure in the streets, that gives you ammunition to use within a conference room.”

It remains unclear how long anyone can keep one foot outside of the established power structure and one foot inside it. If history is any guide, usually, at some point, you have to choose (see: Barack Obama’s journey from community organizer to the presidency). Perhaps suggesting that you don’t have to is naïve, or maybe it is truly is an indication that the coming years in American politics will see profound oscillations between traditional party players and those who wish to overthrow them.