About

#DemExit is a social media campaign and political movement encouraging Bernie Sanders supporters to leave the Democratic Party in protest of Hillary Clinton's nomination in the 2016 United States presidential election.

Origin

On July 12th, 2016, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders formally endorsed rival Hillary Clinton for president against Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming general election. That day, political news blogger Harlan Hill published an article titled "The Death of a Revolution and #DemExit," noting that millions of Democrats would be considering leaving the political party to protest Clinton's candidacy.^[1]

Spread

The same day, the /r/DemExit^[8] subreddit was launched for discussions about the political movement. On July 22nd, 2016, Wikileaks^[9] published a collection of nearly 20,000 e-mails exchanged among key staff members within the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the governing body of the United States Democratic Party, as well as unofficial correspondences with members of the press, between January 2015 and May 2016. In the emails, high ranking members of the DNC discuss various tactics to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders in order to secure Hillary Clinton’s victory in the primaries. On July 24th, Redditor staomeel submitted a post titled "If the DNC nominates Hillary Clinton for President. I can no longer support Democrats #DemExit," to /r/SandersForPresident.^[9] The following day, Sanders was booed by supporters after calling for them to support Hillary Clinton in the upcoming general election (shown below).

Also on July 25th, Fox News broadcast a news segment about the the DNC protests, featuring an interview with an anti-Hillary protester who announced that 13 million people would be leaving the Democratic Party on Thursday in light of the DNC email leak (shown below). Later that day, a post about the planned #DemExit event was submitted to the /rSandersForPresident^[7] subreddit, where it accumulated upwards of 4,600 votes (91% upvoted) and 620 comments over then next four days.

On July 26th, Redditor LuddieStreak submitted a post encouraging viewers to leave the Democratic Party titled "#DemExit" to the /r/SandersForPresident^[5] subreddit, where it received more than 2,500 votes (93% upvoted) and 400 comments in 72 hours. The same day, 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein posted a tweet encouraging people to leave the "neoliberal Democratic Party" with the "#DemExit" hashtag (shown below).^[6]

Meanwhile, hundreds of Sanders delegates staged a walkout en masse following the roll call vote to nominate Hillary Clinton for president at the Democratic National Convention (shown below). On July 29th, Salon published a listicle titled "10 Reasons Why #DemExit Is Serious," which subsequently reached the front page of /r/politics.^[4]

Search Interest

External References