The Democratic National Convention began in Philadelphia on July 25 with anti-Hillary Clinton feeling among Bernie Sanders supporters on full and vocal display, TeleSUR English said the next day.
Clinton became the first woman presidential nominee of the Democratic Party on July 26, amid a major backlash and anger against the party's leadership from the Sanders supporters. Leaked email published by WikiLeaks showed that DNC staff worked to sabotage the socialist senator's campaign in favour of the Wall Street-backed Clinton.
Delegates from South Dakota gave Clinton 15 votes, ensuring that she had more than the 2383 votes needed to win the nomination during a state-by-state roll call at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Clinton will face populist far right-winger Donald Trump on November 8. Clinton is currently trailing Trump in polls, with a CNN/ORC opinion poll gave Trump a 48% to 45% lead over Clinton in a two-way presidential contest. On the other hand, polls have repeatedly suggested Sanders would easily defeat the Republican candidate.
Clinton won a tough battle with the anti-austerity campaign run by Sanders, which challenged the Democrat establishment and generated huge enthusiasm among young people angry at the corporate-dominated politics that have impoverished large swathes of the country.
Sanders has endorsed Clinton, but many of his supporters protested in Philadelphia against the party leadership's apparent backing of her during the bitter Democratic primary fight.
Sanders drew a fervent following of youth and progressives in a primary campaign that called for a tough action against Wall Street and more aggressive steps to counter social inequality.
The convention was also addressed by the mothers of Black people who have been killed at the hands of police over the past few years. The list of keynote speakers includes the mothers of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Dontre Hamilton, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown and Sandra Bland.
In a statement issued before the convention John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 in Philadelphia, said his union was "shocked, saddened and insulted" that the convention gave these mothers a voice.
Video: Hillary Clinton booed on the floor of the Democratic National Convention. Breitbart News.
Meanwhile, Democracy Now! reported on July 26 that hundreds had marched outside the DNC to demand a moratorium on deportations and the closure of the Berks Family Detention Center in Pennsylvania.
One of the protesters, Fernando Lopez, said: "What it means to be undocumented is ... you don't have any rights. You don't have any voice. You don't have a political voice. You don't have the right to vote.
"The reality is that people that are coming to this country, it's not because they want to live the American dream. It's because, in many instances, people are fleeing poverty, people are fleeing violence, and then coming here and face more violence and face more trauma. It's insane. It's a cycle that never ends ...
"It's immoral. And I think the right thing to do, because this is going to go down in history, is for them to dismantle this organization that is ICE and to stop all deportations and to end this crisis already."