AMY GOODMAN: And hundreds of protesters also gathered outside the gates of the Democratic National Convention to protest Hillary Clinton’s nomination. Democracy Now!’s Sam Alcoff and Elizabeth Press were there.

PROTESTERS: Hell no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary! Hell no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary!

CARLA STROZZIERI: My name is Carla Strozzieri. My sign says “Demexit,” and it’s basically borrowed from the Brexit, which we recently saw in Britain. This is an idea that’s been stirring for a while among Bernie supporters, which basically has to do with that if Bernie would not get a fair shake at the convention, then we vowed to come here as Democrats, but to basically leave the party and no longer, you know, affiliate ourselves with the party afterwards. So that’s what the exit is, Demexit, July 29th. So, we’re just a few hours away from that.

KEITH McHENRY: My name’s Keith McHenry, and I’m one of the co-founders of Food Not Bombs. And we’re out here to protest the war and poverty and environmental destruction policies of the Democratic Party and the future that we would have if Hillary Clinton or Trump were elected president. It’s just outrageous the way the political system is rigged and run by large transnational corporations in both parties. And so, I’m out here to say no to that, and to build a community that is resisting it, and to organize against it.

TRINE SMITH: Yes, my name is Trine Smith. I’m a native Philadelphian. We’re waking up. And our voices will be heard. We will be heard. And there will be a redistribution of power, because we’re taking it. We didn’t come to take sides. We came to take over.

PROTESTER 1: They don’t get it!

PROTESTERS: Shut it down!

PROTESTER 1: What do we want?

PROTESTERS: Justice!

PROTESTER 1: When do we want it?

PROTESTERS: Now!

JACINTA MACK: My name is Jacinta Mack. I’m 35 years old. I’m from Queens, New York. And I’ve been in Philadelphia since Sunday. I’m here as a Bernie supporter and protesting.

SAM ALCOFF: And can you describe this sign that you’re carrying?

JACINTA MACK: It is a big poster board that is carved out with Bernie’s name on one side and “Never Hillary” on the other side. When I was younger, my family was on welfare, and Bill Clinton was in office. And they passed welfare reform. We weren’t qualified for food stamps any longer. The monthly money that we got was cut. And then the subsidized housing was also cut. And my mother was required to go out and apply for a certain number of jobs, but she was a single mother of six children and wasn’t able to meet their requirements. We struggled tremendously. And my mother actually became a sex worker.

PROTESTER 2: I just got a message from inside that the DNC is locked down, the arena, to prevent the delegates from walking out.

PROTESTER 3: [echoed by the people’s mic] The delegates are locked inside right now. We will wait for them. We will wait for them. We will stand with them.

AMY MADDEN: My name is Amy Madden. I am one of the volunteers called by the Sanders campaign to the national convention to help our delegates. There were 200 of us from all over the nation, some people here on our last dime. And we were told that we were going to be getting credentials every morning to go inside and to do our job. And we—on Monday, we waited and waited, and by the end of the day, they had not received anything. We finally got to go in. We were put in nosebleed seats. And on Tuesday morning, the leader of our volunteer group told us that we would not be receiving credentials for the rest of the week, and no reason was given.

SHELBY GITTENS: My name is Shelby Gittens. I’m also one of the volunteers from Seattle. We were told on Monday, when we got our credentials, before we even got on the bus—I said, “Is this going to be how it’s going to be every day? Are we going to have to fight to get our credentials every day?” And they told us it’s going to be based on how we behave.

SAM ALCOFF: Can you—

SHELBY GITTENS: [inaudible] even gotten in there yet.

KSHAMA SAWANT: I’m Kshama Sawant. I’m a city councilmember in Seattle, and I’m a member of Socialist Alternative. And I am here because I’m trying to build that political revolution that Bernie Sanders talked about. But what’s happening here is this. Sanders has decided to endorse Clinton, but you can see thousands of people and the Democratic Party’s own delegates do not accept that, because that is not a way forward. That’s a failed strategy, putting our faith in the corporate two parties. So, here, people are here to say that they refuse, they reject that move, and we want to build our independent movement. We want to greet the brave delegates who are going to walk out during Hillary’s speech, so we can discuss where we go from here.

AMY GOODMAN: That was City Councilmember of Seattle Kshama Sawant speaking outside the DNC last night. In a minute, she’ll join us, along with Rebecca Traister of New York Magazine, who has written about Hillary Clinton for over a decade. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We’re “Breaking with Convention.” Back in a minute.