What Ceasefire?

The short video captured it all: Well-dressed and coiffed Democratic National Convention delegates and attendees, covering their ears and making exaggerated faces as they ran the gantlet of Gaza demonstrators outside.

“The protesters, they’re not all that welcome at the DNC,” remarked Sagaar Enjeti in Wednesday’s Breaking Points coverage of the Chicago confab. “I noted whenever you see someone wearing a keffiyeh, there’s a lot of side-eye. Their presence is not welcome.”

“Skunk at the garden party” is how The American Conservative’s contributing editor James Carden, also in attendance, described it to us.

Given both parties’ experience and treatment of antiwar protesters outside their conventions (this writer covered them in 2004 and 2008 at the height of the post-9/11 wars), it should be no surprise that the demonstrators this week—mostly demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and a U.S. arms embargo to Israel—would be marginalized, if not mocked by the Democratic faithful and accompanying elite corps of donors, lobbyists, media, and courtiers inside.