On Monday, at Bernie Sanders’s rally to save Hahnemann University Hospital, the Philadelphia teaching hospital that was purchased and then run into the ground by California-based private equity firms, I asked a few attendees a simple and yet profoundly stupid-sounding question: “What is Netroots Nation?”

The liberal and local press have been, over the past few days, making a big deal out of Bernie’s absence from the progressive conference (organized by the Daily Kos; held in Philly last weekend; about 4,000 attendees this year; cost for registration ranged from $255 to $895, with the latter being the “true, unsubsidized cost to attend”), which a few other presidential candidates, most notably Elizabeth Warren, did attend. “He’s letting Warren have the conversation to herself,” said Daily Kos spokesperson Carolyn Fiddler in an interview with the Guardian, “and I don’t know why he would do that.”

People on the ground at Hahnemann, however, didn’t seem quite so concerned. “Netroots? I’m not familiar,” said Lamar, a Hahnemann patient who told me he’d checked out of the hospital to attend the rally and would have to check back in afterwards (he raised his wrist as he said this to show me his hospital wristband). “I’ve always sort of heard about it but not exactly known what it was,” said James, a software developer from Washington, DC. “I actually don’t really know,” said Maria Gutierrez, an oncology nurse at Hahnemann. “If I was to take a guess, I would guess it has something to do with a grassroots movement involving social media or an internet connection?”