Bernie Delegates Take on Bernie Sanders

Philadelphia.

You knew it was going to come to this.

Bernie delegates taking on Bernie Sanders.

Sanders delegates for the most part don’t like the fact that he endorsed Hillary Clinton. They don’t like the fact that he is supporting her now. And they don’t agree with the leadership of their party that the most important thing now is to vote for Hillary Clinton so as to defeat Donald Trump.

This became embarrassingly clear this morning when Sanders appeared before his supporters in Philadelphia.

“We have got to defeat Donald Trump and we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine,” Sanders told the crowd.

No, said the crowd.

Don’t take my word for it.

Here’s the New York Times report on it.

“His words were immediately met with loud boos which lasted several seconds even as he tried to continue his speech,” the Times reported. “The senator then paused and waited for people to quiet down. But as he spoke many continued to loudly sigh and shake their heads.”

No, Bernie, you are wrong.

“Of course it was a mistake for Bernie Sanders to endorse Hillary Clinton,” Karen Bernal, leader of the largest Bernie delegation – the 200 strong Bernie delegates from California, told a press conference at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Philadelphia.

And many of those Sanders delegates were going to vote third party or not vote at all, she said.

Bernal said that members of the Sanders campaign were pressuring Bernal and other Bernie delegates to “not to be involved in protests, not to be so overt in our protests.”

“My message to them has been while the members of Bernie’s staff are managing affairs on the floor of the convention, as someone representing my state’s delegation, my job is to make sure that the wishes of my delegates are heard,” Bernal said.

Norman Solomon, who is heading up the Bernie Delegates Network, which was holding the press conference at which Bernal spoke, tried to counter Bernal by saying that no Bernie staffer had ever approached him about not protesting and that he would go public with such a request if he ever got it.

Solomon also said while it was okay to vote third party in blue or red states – it was not okay in swing states – with the imperative being to defeat Donald Trump.

But the Bernie delegates are not as convinced.

While Solomon might want Bernie delegates to vote for Hillary, Bernie delegates have a different take.

They have forced DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz out.

Now they have bigger fish to fry.

Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter..