Many, including Bernie and Jane, were astounded at the numbers who showed up in the campaign for the Democratic nomination.
How could a relatively unknown old guy get this many people out and excited for a political rally?
How could the campaign get so many thousands out to vote when the media almost totally ignored it?
Regardless of who you supported maybe you have noticed this and might be curious about the inside details? Who was behind this? What do they have planned next?
Check out this Dutch TV documentary, which has interviews with Jane, young campaigners, coders, and points to the lessons learned and the new spinoffs that are bound to change campaigns and election results in the future.
It’s a little long for some, so before you invest the time here is the YouTube summary:
Published on Nov 6, 2016
Bernie Sanders lost the primaries to nominate a US presidential candidate for the Democratic Party to Hillary Clinton. But it was a glorious loss. And it has become a beginning, not an end. The end of the Bernie Sanders campaign marks the start of a political movement. What are the next steps for this movement and what role will it play in future elections? What is its staying power? And how can a new political generation bring democracy back into the hands of the people and make it truly representative?
Bernie’s campaign made history by receiving a record number of donations from individual citizens, not Wall Street. For the future this could dramatically reduce the enormous power that corporations, banks and Super PACS currently have in American politics. New technology, apps and software have the potential to make campaigning more accessible and affordable to a much wider variety of people and a new kind of political candidates. Bernie’s urgent campaign message about income inequality and the economy of the 99% has galvanised this new movement into action beyond the primaries, at a time when many people of the Millennial generation and in the middle class find themselves squeezed in a post-crisis economic reality.
With: Jane O’Meara Sanders (partner, Bernie’s closest political adviser and founder of Our Revolution), Arun Chaudhary (creative director for Bernie’s online campaign and partner at digital agency Revolution Messaging), Zephyr Teachout (candidate for the US House of Representative in New York’s 19th congressional district), Saikat Chakrabarti (director digital organising technology for ‘Bernie 2016’ and one of the founders of Brand New Congress) and Josh Smith, Rapi Castillo & Jon Culver (Progressive Coders/Coders for Sanders).
Director: Kasper Verkaik
Research: Sander Tordoir, William de Bruijn
Director of photography: Myrthe Mosterman
Sound: Diego van Uden
Editor: Obbe Verwer
Web editor: Tessa de Vries
Additional crew: Mariana Lafollette
Producers: Sharon Yosef, Nina Huisman
Commissioning editors: Marije Meerman, Doke Romeijn
Thanks to: Jeff Cohen, Jon Warnow, Diderik Evers, Robert S. Wilson
'Bernie 2016' still photography by Arun Chaudhary
VPRO has made every effort to trace all rightful claimants regarding the extracts shown in this programme.