Bernie Supporters Vow to Vote for the Senator Whether He Wants Them To or Not

The DNC email leak over the weekend apparently confirmed Bernie supporters' inklings that the supposedly impartial organization conspired to derail a perfect angel's bid for the presidency. Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz stepped down as DNC chair (and officially into Hilary Clinton's campaign) only yesterday, but back in May, activist Bill Higgins had already planned to lead a ten-day march from DC to the convention in Philadelphia. Not everyone made it the whole way, but when he arrived yesterday, he likely encountered dozens of other pro-Bernie groups with the same aim: to somehow force the DNC to crown Sanders as the Democratic candidate for president.

One of those groups, Occupy DNC, has more than 30,000 supporters online, and a good amount of people down on the ground, according to reports; NBC notes that Black Men for Bernie is also represented outside the convention by way of a large bus; and Democracy Spring is currently engaged in a mass sit-in at Marconi Plaza to end what they see as a corrupt election process that allowed Hilary Clinton to triumph. According to CNN, the Clinton campaign has already conceded to some of the organization's demands.

A group called Philly.fyi, formed by adamant Sanders supporter Billy Taylor, is also there. When Taylor found out that the city was making permits available for the park right outside the convention, he snagged four out of six of them, 100-degree weather be damned. Right now, Taylor is somewhere out there in the park rallying people; I can't get a hold of him. When I called him earlier, he said he was slammed trying to prepare for the convention later tonight.

Instead, I talked to Karen Chamberlin, the PR director of Philly.fyi and the deputy director of DC to DNC, who is not in the park but heading there soon. (She needed to take care of her dog.) Though she is currently missing the action, she is no less passionate about the need for Sanders to become our next president. "Philly.fyi secured permits to basically allow Bernie supporters in the city to voice our opinions because our voices and our votes were basically stolen from us," she said over the phone. "As you can tell with the media from the past few days, the truth has been unveiling the corruption."

Indeed, the emails revealed a whole bunch of shitty things that various DNC officials said. But unlike many democrats who are presumably content to Pokémon Go to the polls for Clinton as long as she remains not Donald Trump, Sanders supporters are not taking this news lightly. "We know that Bernie Sanders is the only one for us. We've been saying for months now, 'Bernie or bust,'" Chamberlin said.

She added, just to be clear, "We are not Trump supporters. We do not believe that there is anyone else for us but Bernie."

However, earlier today Sanders stood in front of his delegates at the Philadelphia Convention Center and urged them to "elect Hilary Clinton," in the name of defeating the Republicans. "Brothers and sisters, this is the real world that we live in," he said. And as the convention officially started, reports say that Sanders texted his delegates asking them "not engage in any kind of protest on the floor." Sanders previously endorsed Clinton earlier this month.

Are Sanders stalwarts at all worried that the Vermont senator has given up the fight? Not really. "FDR had endorsed his opponent and still went on to win the election," Chamberlin countered, though this seems to be mathematically difficult for Sanders to achieve.

Still, she's certain that Sanders has something else up his sleeve, and she doubts his continued endorsement of Hillary. "We know that he needs to say what he needs to say because he is on a Democratic convention floor, which is corrupt," she said when I asked her what she made of Sanders's comments about party unity today. "He also said that we need to take our political revolution forward, and the only way we can do that is with him, not with her. Bernie said that our movement will continue. He has not asked us to vote against our hearts. He will not leave us.

"We will move the DNC [to make Bernie the nominee]—that's why we're doing these marches," she continued. "We're letting them know. If they do not want to hear us, all we can say is, don't blame us if Trump gets elected. None of us will vote for a corrupt person to lead this nation. That is not going to happen."