Bernie Sanders delegates seek bold changes beyond unseating Donald Trump, some report feeling left out of DNC events

Despite his passion for politics and role as a Pennsylvania delegate, Mike Cordaro laments feeling a little left out of this year’s Democratic National Convention.

He’s feeling alienated not merely because of the all-virtual events, but because he’s a fan of Bernie Sanders.

“I’ve asked every day if there will be an opportunity to meet and network with delegates, and I’ve been ignored all three days,” Cordaro, 33, of Bullskin Township, Fayette County, said by phone midday Wednesday. “They can’t expect us to sit around and be a part of this if we’re going to be totally silenced.”

Cordaro was among 34 delegates to cast votes in support of Sanders during Tuesday night’s virtual roll call, in line with the number of delegates who committed to Sanders during the primary season before Joe Biden securing the Democratic Party’s official backing.

The vote marked one of the few times he’s felt like he played a meaningful part in the four-day extravaganza.

During the first two days, Cordaro and fellow delegates for Sanders have been chatting on a private Slack social media channel. On a Zoom call with about seven fellow Sanders supporters early Wednesday, “Everyone just seemed bummed out that they don’t have an opportunity to be heard,” Cordaro said.

Like others who fall under the Democratic Party’s umbrella, Cordaro said he shares the goal of unseating Donald Trump. In November, Cordaro will be voting for Biden, who claimed 175 Pennsylvania delegate votes announced Tuesday by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, outside Biden’s childhood home.

But Cordaro and fellow Sanders supporters from the region emphasized the need for the party to communicate better and involve dialogue among its own factions — and namely, progressives and younger voters who were energized by Sanders’ message.

To sustain momentum, they argue, efforts should go beyond reaching out to non-Democrats and denouncing President Trump.

“We are presently united in the hatred of one man, Donald Trump. That glue will not hold,” state Rep. Sara Innamorato, a first-term lawmaker of Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood, said Wednesday afternoon during a “Rising Stars” virtual event organized by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “It will suffice for now, but it is imperative that we audit our actions and see how we have left many behind, and perhaps reconcile where our rhetoric conflicts with our actions.”

In seeking to win over wavering Republicans, party leaders could be overlooking the chance to reinvigorate progressives who already are a part of the party’s diverse umbrella but feel alienated or apathetic about voting.

“The unity has been key. It’s been strong,” said Christopher Deluzio, 36, a Sanders delegate and attorney from Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood. “And I think Democrats’ pitch to the country has got to be the case against Donald Trump and why his presidency needs to end.

“But … it can’t just be enough to say, ‘Well, Donald Trump is a disaster.’

“We also have to offer our vision. You can’t do that without hashing out the difficult and thorny political fights.”

The party also could be missing out on capitalizing on gains made by progressives in congressional primary elections, and risk preventing the type of internal divisions that helped Trump win in 2016.

“We need to recognize why people didn’t show up to vote,” Innamorato said. “And once we realize that, we can actually move forward.”

Looking for progressive policies

By early July, political task forces Biden formed with Sanders to solidify support among the Democratic Party’s progressive wing recommended that the former vice president embrace proposals to combat climate change and institutional racism while expanding health care coverage and rebuilding a coronavirus-ravaged economy.

“Sen. Sanders spoke to the obscene inequality in this country, and not just the facts of it, but the policy choices that have driven it over the years, the corrupting influence of money in politics and the need to strengthen labor unions and workplace protections,” Deluzio said.

Progressives report wanting fewer platitudes and more meaningful discussions to provide clarity around the party’s stances on divisive issues such as Medicare for All, campaign finance reform, how to approach improving police relations and ways to address inequities and civil unrest over social justice issues.

“Mostly, it’s the young people who are out in the streets” seeking economic, racial and environmental justice, Innamorato said. “What an opportunity we have as Democrats to bring that energy in the party in a collective way, to meet the moment of collective suffering with collective action and a bold, people-centered agenda. It’s not just about the right rhetoric, but the real, life-changing policies that match it. We cannot allow these cries from the street for justice to fall on deaf ears.”

State Rep. Summer Lee, D-Braddock, emphasized that her goal is “not just to elect Democrats up and down the ticket.”

“Once we defeat Trump, it’s incumbent on all of us … to really start to defeat the cancer that actually brought him about,” which includes confronting and reforming or dismantling the systems and institutions that are unjust, she said.

Also Wednesday, Sanders and others from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party called on Democrats from key Midwestern suburbs to work together to not only elect Biden, but also to forge ahead with a progressive agenda.

“Defeating Trump is not all that this campaign is about,” said Sanders, speaking from his hometown of Burlington, Vt. “We have to lay out a vision for the American people today who are struggling and hurting in a way we have never seen for a very, very long time.”

The all-virtual nature of this year’s convention, with the covid-19 pandemic forcing the party to abandon plans in Milwaukee, hasn’t made it easy for any Democrats to network or engage in conversations and debates outside of the scheduled programming.

Most of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s events — virtual breakfasts and meetings featuring local, state and federal politicians and candidates — have involved predesignated speakers giving remarks, with the video and audio disabled for the rest of the virtual conference’s participants.

Cordaro said he worries the program’s lack of inclusion of progressive Democrats signals that akin to four years ago, party leaders may be “afraid that there’s going to be some riffraff from the Bernie bros.”

“But that’s just the narrative. If we wanted to leave,” he said, “we would have left after ’16.”

He likened the muting and lack of participation of Sanders delegates in the virtual program to efforts he viewed as attempts to suppress Sanders supporters during the 2016 convention, including trying to block too many Sanders supporters from sitting together, blocking TV crews from capturing Sanders signs and putting up white noise machines near an especially rambunctious group of Sanders fans from California.

Deluzio believes that Biden “is going to be our next president, and then there’s going to be a lot of work from progressives to make sure that his administration is as progressive as it can be.”

“I’d love to see Biden embrace Medicare for All and guarantee health care as a right, I’d love to see him strengthen campaign finance reform and end the influence of dark money and corporate money in politics, and I’d love to see a reinvigorated labor movement, which Joe Biden speaks a lot about,” Deluzio said.

Cordaro hopes Biden clinches victory but is less confident about the outcome. He’s concerned that in Pennsylvania, “Trump support is growing.”

“I have a lifetime Democrat neighbor who just within the last month put up a Trump yard sign,” he said.

To keep that from happening, Cordaro said there needs to be more of a focus on reaching everyone within the party rather than shifting too far to the right to win anti-Trump Republicans and centrist voters.

“They turned around and blamed progressives for the loss in ’16,” Cordaro said. “And I’m afraid if Biden loses, they’re going to blame the progressives again.”