Thursday Night Rally by Sanders: Alive, Still Standing and Continuing to Fight
EndFragment
The Democratic nomination may be mathematically out of reach and Hillary Clinton may have declared victory, but you wouldn’t have guessed that by watching Sanders’s D.C. rally Thursday.
Have you ever been to a funeral where the man everyone was there to mourn was standing upright, speaking into a microphone, and generating applause lines?
I have.
It took place Thursday evening at the Maloof Skate Park near Lot 3 of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in southeast Washington, D.C. Mourners included public intellectual Cornel West, who kicked off the event by railing against “Wall Street Democrats” and “male supremacy,” and by calling Donald Trump a “neo-fascist” and Hillary Clinton the “milquetoast neoliberal sister.”
And then came the man the relatively small gathering of supporters and journalists had come to cheer, remember, and observe: Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“We’re still standing,” the 74-year-old Democratic socialist told his adoring crowd.
Technically, he was correct.
During his hour-long speech, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate delivered virtually the same speech he has delivered on the campaign trail for months. He spoke of the need for “radical change” and a political “revolution” for everything from mental-health treatment to tackling income inequality in America. He riffed on police department militarization, campaign finance reform, and Trump’s anti-science positions on climate change. His fans yelled, “We love you, Bernie!” and chanted, “Thank you, Bernie!” and waved the usual paper placards—anti-war, anti-student-debt, “A Future to Believe In.”
EndFragment