A Chat With Code Pink Protestor Alli McCracken About Crashing the RNC
Politics

CLEVELAND — Code Pink co-director Alli McCracken made headlines when, on the first night of the Republican National Convention, she stood up and unfurled a banner.
“Yes We Can End War!” the appropriately pink sign read (Code Pink is a women-led anti-war grassroots organization) and, for a moment, cameras turned from speaker Senator Jeff Sessions (AL) to McCracken yelling, “Trump’s hate makes us unsafe!” and “Stop Trump’s Islamophobia! Stop Mike Pence’s war on women!” A handful of stations caught the ensuing struggle as Trump supporter attempted to grab the sign from her hands and security led her out.

We caught up with McCracken after a Code Pink demonstration in Cleveland’s Public Square. McCracken, wearing a suit patterned with $100 bills and an oversized paper mache Donald Trump head, was accompanied by 12 Code Pink members, all dressed as beauty queens (having 13 people in the speaker’s corner was technically a violation of the rules). The 27-year-old McCracken told Jezebel that she traveled from Washington, D.C., specifically to protest. “I felt compelled to come to Cleveland to protest the RNC and the GOP platform.” She added that, as an activist and young person, she’s “concerned with how the government is spending our money and resources. There are trillions of dollars going to war and military spending instead of investing in our future and communities.”

McCracken said that the group had been in Cleveland since Saturday and that their two trips into the Quicken Loans Arena (co-founder Jodie Evans disrupted the convention last night) were serendipitous. “We got lucky because we found a few badges on the ground, McCracken said. “I think they might have been left by a few sympathizers.”