Read This: Sarah Silverman talks about the DNC and how that “ridiculous” thing happened
The first day of the Democratic National Convention got surprisingly rowdy last night, as speaker after speaker had to put up with some disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporters in the audience voicing their frustrations every time anybody said something positive about Hillary Clinton. However, longtime Bernie supporter Sarah Silverman had very little interest in putting up with it. After making a passionate speech about why she’s supporting Clinton even though she backed Sanders in the primaries, the crowd became so disruptive that she told the “Bernie or bust people” that they were “being ridiculous.” It didn’t really shut anybody up, because cries for sanity rarely do, but it was certainly a powerful moment.
Today, Silverman spoke with The New York Times about what happened, and she gives an interesting account of what it was like to be on that stage. She says she “focused on the audience at home” while she talked, which is not usually what she does in her comedy, because she knew that “the loudest voice doesn’t mean that it’s the right voice or the majority voice at all.” She says she understands the passion people feel for Sanders, noting that “no one’s more passionate” than she is, but she doesn’t see Clinton winning the nomination as a defeat for Sanders or his supporters. “People who change the world aren’t always the president,” she explains, adding that his movement was never supposed to end after the election.
As for the “ridiculous” moment itself, Silverman says it happened because the people backstage told her and Al Franken (who was there to help her introduce Paul Simon) to stretch for a moment, requiring her to go off-book a little. The New York Times asked if she approached it the way she would approach a heckler, but Silverman said no, explaining that it was “such chaos” that she didn’t really feel like people were yelling specific things at her.
You can read the whole piece at this link.