CHICAGO—On the evening of Wednesday, Aug. 22, a handful of delegates to the Democratic National Convention launched a sit-in just steps away from the entrance to the United Center, where Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to give her acceptance speech Thursday evening.

Excerpt from the article:

CHICAGO—On the evening of Wednesday, Aug. 22, a handful of delegates to the Democratic National Convention launched a sit-in just steps away from the entrance to the United Center, where Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to give her acceptance speech Thursday evening.

The sit-in was sparked by the DNC’s refusal to include a Palestinian speaker on the stage line-up at any point during the four-day meeting. The Uncommitted Movement released a statement that read, in part:

“Uncommitted delegates urge the Democratic Party to reject a hierarchy of human values by ensuring Palestinian voices are heard on the main stage. We are learning that Israeli hostages’ families will be speaking from the main stage. We strongly support that decision and also strongly hope that we will also be hearing from Palestinians.”

The United Auto Workers (UAW) released a statement Thursday morning strongly backing the delegates were are sitting in and supporting their demand.

“If we want peace, if we want real democracy, and if we want to win this election, the Democratic Party must allow a Palestinian-American speaker to be heard from the DNC stage tonight,” the UAW said.

Here’s hoping for the best, but I don’t expect much from the DNC here…

    • knfrmity@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      There’s a bunch of different categories so I’ll keep it general.

      A delegate is someone who votes at the national party convention on behalf of the people who voted in the state or district party primary election for a given presidential candidate.

      It’s basically the electoral college but for the party.

        • knfrmity@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          Until 2018 the Democrats even allowed their “superdelegates” (typically elected officials from the state levels) to vote for whoever they wanted, no faithless action required. That could (and maybe did?) swing candidate selection, as superdelegates make up 15% of the total.