Philadelphia
Upon hearing that I have spent the afternoon with Democracy Spring activists, a fellow journalist expresses some degree of amazement. “Those were the guys going over the barricades!” he says. Earlier that week, when the Democratic party quashed the revolt of Bernie Sanders delegates, it was Democracy Spring that led the dramatic protests outside the convention hall that resulted in numerous arrests.
In fact, I have been lured to Marconi Plaza—a.k.a. “the park near Oregon Steaks”—under the explicit promise that Democracy Spring is about to carry out another big “direct action.” Since they are the hardest of the hardcore Sanders supporters and make no bones about their desire to go out and get arrested if it will generate attention for their cause, they don’t exactly broadcast the location of their gatherings. When I arrive, and for the next few hours, I’m the only press there to witness what’s going on.
If only what I had witnessed weren’t vaguely pathetic.
For a group of people whose favorite pejorative is “oligarchy,” they seem to have no problem embracing all of the awkward teambuilding exercises normally associated with the hated corporate America. They put their own spin on it, sure, but it still comes off as Tony Robbins or Zig Ziglar with a hint of Maoism. They kick things off by standing in a circle so they can introduce themselves and explain why they’re here. But as soon as they open their mouths, the group’s motivations seem so vague and disparate that teambuilding starts to seem like a good idea.
“I want to see people rise up!”
“I’m tired of the lack of socialist policies.”
“I’m here because the earth is our mother and we must take care of her.””I want to get money out of politics.”
“I’m here to smoke weed and f—k s—t up.”
“I agree with these guys.”
Listening to this, a man hanging back from the circle starts to pity the organizers and says to the man standing next to him, “It’s got to be like herding cats.” To the extent unifying themes emerge, those present attribute a rather grandiose sense of purpose to their mission. A man named Vladimir (yes, really) says, “I’m here to save democracy!” Another attendee puts a more irreverent spin on it: “I’m here to do two things, chew gum and save democracy and I’m all out of gum.” But why stop at saving democracy? “I’m Henry from Massachusetts and I believe another world is possible.”
Once everyone’s on the same page, the teambuilding exercises get more elaborate. Someone pulls out a parachute adorned with pro-Sanders slogans and they do that thing you do in grade school where they all fluff it into the air and then quickly sit underneath it. They “resonate.” That’s where someone tells the story why they’re fighting for justice, and another person tells them afterward what part of their story “resonated” with them as a listener.
Here the aforementioned Henry from Massachusetts steps up to be the example. His story starts with the fact that he and his siblings were raised in a loving home. It wasn’t until he flew the nest that he realized just how bad things were. “It wasn’t until college that I found organizing,” he says. “I started to think about the janitors on campus who weren’t being paid enough.” He moved on to bigger causes, agitating for his school to divest from fossil fuels. (He is conspicuously silent in regard to any successes this campaign my have had.) Then he graduated and went to work for Public Citizen, the Ralph Nader-founded liberal group that is “defending democracy from corporate greed.” But he was quickly disillusioned because the group wasn’t radical enough for his tastes. So he reenrolled in school, but not for long. “In the winter, I read about Democracy Spring. And I dropped out and I followed my heart.”
What resonated with me is that this is an amazingly cliché story about the formation of leftist radicals. But I am admittedly a big outlier in this group. “Thank you for that awesome story,” says one of Henry’s fellow organizers. “What resonated for me is that you leveraged your privilege of having come from a stable family to fight for justice.” The example provided, they take several minutes to break out into groups of four to resonate with each other, vigorously admonishing everyone not to resonate with people you already know. That would defeat the purpose.
While this has all been going on, every half an hour or so organizers have been promising that the direct action will get underway soon. At some point, it becomes apparent that all of these exercises—the resonating, coordinated marching with a giant banner, running a circle within the circle doing group high fives—all just amount to stalling. It’s been over three hours in the park in Philly’s sweltering summer heat. They try to be reassuring—”We have a couple of really solid action plans for some really powerful escalations”—but clearly people are restless.
It’s easy to say that these people are misguided and wrong about everything; it certainly doesn’t help that there’s a guy wandering around wearing a baseball cap that reads, “Google Chemtrails.” But three hours into this, and you can’t help but admire their dedication. They are admirably guileless about welcoming cranky and disagreeable reporters. And at least some of them are uncommonly thoughtful. John, from Eugene, Oregon, engages me in a rather intelligent conversation about replacing America’s welfare programs with basic income.
Sanders supporters have been complaining loudly about how the Democratic party rigged the election. Certainly the undemocratic superdelegates and leaked emails that showed DNC officials conspiring against them lend a lot of credence to that complaint. They recognize Hillary Clinton is irredeemably corrupt and even wear “Hillary for Prison” T-shirts. On some level, though, there’s a more gut reaction to the Democratic party stiff-arming a socialist candidate: Thank God. There’s simply no way to argue that Sanders’s policies, such as “Medicare for all” or free college (which was persuasive enough to push Hillary Clinton into partially adopting during her acceptance speech) are in any way workable or responsible. And socialism as an historical force is rightly viewed as dangerous, considering the atrocities it’s been used to justify. Perhaps the DNC was simply repelling the barbarians from the literal barricades.
But as historical analogies go, “barbarians at the gate” might be something the Democratic party ought to contemplate. The so-called barbarians were often far more civilized than they’re portrayed. The Visigoths sacked Rome, but they did so with a minimal amount of the usual rape and bloodshed that usually accompanied such ventures. The Visigoths were cultured, Arian Christians who thought of themselves as part of the Roman empire, and it was Rome’s own political and moral rot that ultimately enabled them.
Besides, it’s not really clear what these self-proclaimed socialists really want. They say things, such as they want “money out of politics,” but I assure you they have no clear idea of how to do it or what that would mean, assuming they believe what they also say about respecting democracy and protecting people’s rights.
Ultimately, they’re not a lot different than most people stuck in an abjectly horrible election year. They just want things to change for the better. “People think political change happens incrementally, but it doesn’t,” John from Eugene tells me. “There are periods where it happens quickly, like the Civil Rights era or the ’80s under Reagan. I think we’re long overdue for one of those periods.”
Of course, Democracy Spring isn’t going to effect any change unless they eventually get out of this park. They’ve separated the group into people who plan on getting arrested and those who aren’t planning on getting arrested, but the tantalizing promise of the “powerful escalation” hasn’t been realized. There’s a rumor flying around—that no one will confirm—that the reason we haven’t marched to the site of the planned “direct action” is the organizers are waiting for a journalist from the New Yorker to show up. Maybe another world is possible, but in this one, making dozens of people sweat in 90 percent humidity playing Soviet summer camp while awaiting an official stenographer of the bourgeoisie isn’t an outrageous possibility. (It’s certainly no more outrageous as a socialist presidential candidate demanding the ruling party provide him with a private jet.)
After nearly four hours of sweating through my shirt and no evidence of a march beginning anytime soon, I realize I have a train to catch. On the ride back to Washington, I see the news that there are disruptive protests outside the Wells Fargo Arena where the Democratic convention is being held, including a report that someone burned a flag and—how’s this for a metaphor?—set themselves on fire in the process. It took a while, but Democracy Spring had finally sprung.
