Clinton to transform Democratic Party

Sanders vows to work with Clinton to transform Democratic Party

In a live-streamed video, the Vermont senator neither conceded defeat nor endorsed his primary rival.

By Gabriel Debenedetti

Bernie Sanders refused to concede in the Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton during a live-streamed video address to his supporters on Thursday night, pledging to take his army of delegates to the party’s July convention — but no longer directly addressing the possibility of defeating the presumptive nominee.

“We must continue our grass-roots efforts to create the America that we know we can become,” he said, sitting in a cramped studio in his hometown while pledging in his starkest terms yet to take on Donald Trump. “And we must take that energy into the Democratic National Convention on July 25 in Philadelphia where we will have more than 1,900 delegates."

Sanders did not endorse Clinton, as other top figures in the Democratic Party — from President Barack Obama to Sen. Elizabeth Warren — already have done.

“The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly,” he added, just two days after he met with Clinton in person in Washington. “And I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time."

Delivering his first speech to supporters in a week — an uncharacteristically long period of silence for a campaign built around massive rallies throughout the country — Sanders got as close as he has to acknowledging that Clinton has won, but he devoted the bulk of his remarks to outlining the "political revolution" he has been stumping for over the past year.

"Defeating Donald Trump cannot be our only goal," Sanders said. "We must continue our grass-roots efforts to create the America that we know we can become. And we must take that energy into the Democratic National Convention on July 25 in Philadelphia where we will have more than 1,900 delegates."

Sanders sketched out a familiar list of changes he wishes to see in the party and its platform. The implicit message: that Democrats and their standard-bearer should embrace his ideas, even as Clinton turns her sights toward Trump.

“I recently had the opportunity to meet with Secretary Clinton and discuss some of the very important issues facing our country and the Democratic Party. It is no secret that Secretary Clinton and I have strong disagreements on some very important issues. It is also true that our views are quite close on others,” he said, hinting at a slow wind-down of their tensions.

And he signaled that he intended to negotiate fiercely for his progressive platform before he might endorse his primary rival.

“I look forward, in the coming weeks, to continued discussions between the two campaigns to make certain that your voices are heard and that the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda," he said.

Among Sanders’ list of policy proposals — almost all of which came straight from his standard stump speech: a $15 federal minimum wage, pay equity for women, banning fracking, and stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

Yet he also dove into a series of reforms he wants the party to adopt, reviving the "50-state strategy" he spoke about frequently in the early days of his campaign, and which was popularized by fellow Vermonter and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

He also reiterated his demand to replace the leadership of the Democratic Party, a point that he has been focusing on more toward the tail end of his campaign as he has ramped up his criticism of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

And he spoke at more length than ever about his hopes for the young voters who followed his campaign in droves, urging them to consider running for elected positions and engaging in politics to revitalize the Democratic infrastructure.

“Here is a cold, hard fact that must be addressed. Since 2009, some 900 legislative seats have been lost to Republicans in state after state throughout the country. In fact, the Republican Party now controls 31 state legislatures and controls both the governors’ mansions and statehouses in 23 states. That is unacceptable,” he said, pointing supporters to a webpage his campaign set up to educate them on running for office.

“We need to start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way," Sanders said. "Hundreds of thousands of volunteers helped us make political history during the last year. These are people deeply concerned about the future of our country and their own communities. Now we need many of them to start running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships. State and local governments make enormously important decisions, and we cannot allow right-wing Republicans to increasingly control them."

But at the end of his 23-minute speech, he turned back to a longer view, reminiscing on his campaign and framing it as just part of a much longer-term struggle.

“Let me conclude by once again thanking everyone who has helped in this campaign in one way or another. We have begun the long and arduous process of transforming America, a fight that will continue tomorrow, next week, next year, and into the future,” he said toward the end of the speech. “My hope is that when future historians look back and describe how our country moved forward into reversing the drift toward oligarchy, and created a government which represents the people and not the few, they will note that, to a significant degree, that effort began with the political revolution of 2016."