A Dialogue on the Revolution
Reports from the first day of the Democratic National Convention highlighted a set of speakers not on the original schedule: a booing delegation in the audience.
The media interpreted these disruptions in a variety of ways: Bernie-or-Bust delegates were threatening Democratic unity, and/or were emotional fanatics, disavowed by the candidate himself. Alternate readings drew on the impact of the location, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, with writers highlighting the city’s history of both political activism and vocal audiences.
Regardless of how you interpreted them, the disruptions to the convention fundamentally altered the “text” (the play-by-play of speakers and speeches) of the event. “Reading” the event in full suddenly required viewers to re-imagine what these speeches were — not discrete orations by single speakers, but addresses framed by impromptu, communal call-and-responses from the audience. That made the experience of the speech as delivered differ, sometimes drastically, from the prepared remarks on paper.
From the outset, Senator Bernie Sanders’ speech was a loud event. Even after a three-minute standing ovation, Sanders was held up by continued applause and cheers as he tried to begin his address.
Early on — and veering from his prepared remarks — Sanders posed a question to the crowd, drawing on one of his frequent refrains. “Anyone know what that average [campaign] contribution was?” he asks. The crowd bellowed back, “$27!”
Rhetorically, Sanders was rejecting the boundaries between candidate and supporter; they were all stakeholders on equal footing: “our supporters,” “our revolution,” “the historical accomplishments we have achieved.” When looking ahead to the continued struggle “to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent,” Sanders was clear about his role in relation to supporters: “I look forward to being part of that struggle with you.”
Between Sanders’ interactions with the crowd, and the community-focused diction, the speech allowed the thematic possibility of multiple speakers. And the lively crowd seized upon this opening. When Sanders said, “We need leadership which brings our people together and makes us stronger,” the words were followed by a cacophony of conflict: mixed booing and cheering, chants of “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!”
The remarks as prepared tried to point away from the drama of the moment, directing attention elsewhere.
This election is not about, and has never been about, Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders or any of the other candidates who sought the presidency…This election is about — and must be about — the needs of the American people and the kind of future we create for our children and grandchildren.
In the same vein, Sanders created a dichotomy between the politics of today, and the longer view of the path to justice. For Sanders, the “political gossip…campaign strategy…the things the media spends so much time discussing” are irrelevant to the success of “our revolution.” Even today’s issues were framed as part of a longer timeline: “the 40-year decline of our middle class,” the “eight years of Republican trickle-down economics” that preceded the Obama administration.
As Sanders summed it up:
Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent — a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice — that struggle continues.
In terms of the call-and-response, the live delivery of this speech added complex echoes to various phrases. As Sanders stated, “This election is about…not just bombast, fear-mongering, name-calling and divisiveness,” segments of the crowd booed loudly, enveloping the words.
The height of the audience response came during Sanders’ explanation of his endorsement of Secretary Hillary Clinton. As prepared for delivery, the structure of his endorsement showed his focus on the broader political future. He moved point by point through the main ideas of his campaign, in an escalating series tying his ideas to Clinton’s, in opposition to Donald Trump’s.
But as delivered, and against a wall of sound, Sanders’ words take on new intensity. He spoke emphatically, adding to his prepared remarks to meet the fired-up moment: addressing the crowd as “brothers and sisters;” “our environment” instead of the written “the environment;” an added “tragically” when discussing those “who cannot afford to go to college.”
In fact, the power of his delivery of the phrase, “Hillary Clinton will nominate justices to the Supreme Court who are prepared to overturn Citizens United,” triggered another standing ovation in the crowd. And when Sanders reached the central point, where he and Clinton diverged ideologically but had negotiated a new plan, the crowd erupted in what sounded like unanimous applause and cheers.
That central point is a reminder that there is still work to be done, not just in the 2016 election cycle, but in the decades and centuries-long movement toward equality. That point, as written and delivered, literalized Sanders’ aim, and his focus on the next generation. He explained that he and Clinton “both focused on this issue [student debt and free college tuition] but with different approaches,” yet “have come together on a proposal” that can push the larger fight forward. His endorsement at large did this same work: urging a compromise, encouraging a coming together, and pressing toward progress on a longer timescale.
But in his address, Sanders didn’t have the last word — after thanking the crowd and beginning to leave the podium, a group of audience members chanted, “We will not yield! We will not yield!”
Communal chants like these, or like the refrain of “No T.P.P.!” earlier in the speech, alongside the mixed boos and cheers, all followed the Sanders model. His 2016 campaign awakened a coalition of students, members of the working class, and disenfranchised and excluded Americans to realize their true political power. Votes must be earned, and politicians must be taken to task — including, for some audience members, Sanders himself.
Sanders made this theme clear early on: “Yes, we have made progress, but I think we can all agree that much, much more needs to be done.” Today, as in 2016, that struggle continues.
In “Orations Worth Ovations,” professional speechwriters analyze great speeches (real or fictional, historic or personal) and explain what makes them so good.
Read Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Democratic National Convention speech here.
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