Youth Activists Arrested At Biden's Campaign HQ
On Monday, February 12, 21 diverse youth supporting the Sunrise Movement took over the lobby to Biden's campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. About 60 more people were gathered outside the offices to support and protest. They were demanding that Biden declare a climate emergency ahead of the 2024 election.
The nearly two dozen activists who invaded the campaign headquarters sat down and blockaded the office doors in an attempt to speak with the campaign team. They held signs with phrases like "Fund climate, not genocide", "Biden: Lead or Lose" and "This is an emergency".
After around an hour, the police finally moved in. As a young woman named Grace was filmed speaking to the camera about her experience coming from a first-generation immigrant household, the police gave their final warning and then arrested her. "I'm fighting for my mom and everyone in my community that is dying of heatstroke and disease," she said as she was led away to the police van. The rest of the activists sang a haunting protest song: "Biden, can't you see? This will be your legacy."
19 year old Shiva Rajbhandari said: "President Biden needs to pick a side, is he with us or is he with the oil and gas millionaires who have controlled the Democratic Party and our politics in general for a long time? It seems like he hasn’t made up his mind, and as a young voter, for me, that’s not exciting. In fact, it’s infuriating and insulting and disgusting." As he was led to the police van, he passionately called out to the camera: "My home is under attack! Wildfires, storms, drought, hurricanes. The climate crisis is here and Biden has the power to do something about it. All we're asking is that he use the tools at his disposal. I'm putting my life on the line, my body on the line, and all we're asking is that he declare a climate emergency."
Sunrise's communications director Stevie O’Hanlon said: “Young people are pretty pissed at Joe Biden right now. Joe Biden can’t fund renewable energy on Monday, on Tuesday fund a genocide and approve oil projects and then claim to be a climate president and expect the youth vote.”
Sunrise has been targeting Republican presidential campaign events for months. For example, last month one activist briefly disrupted a Ron DeSantis event before being harshly tackled to the ground. This most recent action from the group at Biden's campaign HQ marks a change, as they are now directly targeting the candidate they helped elect in 2020 to secure a win through a climate emergency declaration.
In early July of 2022, I helped plan and took part in disruptive actions with Declare Emergency in Washington DC, including a blockade of the DC Beltway, which apparently nearly got Biden to declare a climate emergency: the media began reporting later in the month that Biden was considering the idea. Biden, or his team, ultimately decided against it. White House official at the time, David Hayes, said that we need to "get beyond symbolism here."
What was delivered instead was the Inflation Reduction Act. Of the IRA, Sunrise's cofounder and executive director Varshini Prakash wrote that it is "both a historic investment in climate action that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago and contains massive handouts to fossil fuel millionaires and Joe Manchin... The movement for a Green New Deal created the conditions to make Biden's agenda and this climate investment possible." But, as she explains, the IRA is woefully inadequate.
We're going to need these demonstrations to be done en masse if we want significant and deep change to happen in this country. This action by Sunrise is a great step in that direction.
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