Young climate protesters are rattling the DNC
The young protesters who have increasingly become the face of an urgent new movement to combat the climate crisis rattled the Democratic Party’s central institution this week, camping out on the steps of its headquarters and sending jitters through its senior staff ranks.
About a dozen protesters in black T-shirts stood vigil Tuesday and Wednesday night outside the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters, and more than a hundred watched the debate on a screen outside the locked Washington institution.
“We need to show people we’re willing to sacrifice our time, to sleep on brick floors for this cause,” said Juliana Rossi de Camargo, a 25-year-old fellow with the Sunrise Movement. “This is an emergency.”
In Miami, where the DNC’s senior staff gathered for the first Democratic debate, party staff sent an urgent email to campaigns warning them against their supporters disrupting the debate itself. The email was aimed, a Democratic source said, at Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who had invited young climate activists to attend the debate as his guests. [Continue reading…]