A lot of people who weren’t alive to witness the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago are wondering if it’s legendary chaos. I evaluated that possibility at New York:
When the Democratic National Committee chose Chicago as the site of the party’s 2024 national convention a year ago, no one knew incumbent presidential nominee Joe Biden would become the target of major antiwar demonstrations. The fateful events of October 7 were nearly six months away, and Biden had yet to formally announce his candidacy for reelection. So there was no reason to anticipate comparisons to the riotous 1968 Democratic Convention, when images of police clashing with anti–Vietnam War protesters in the Windy City were broadcast into millions of homes. Indeed, a year ago, a more likely analog to 2024 might have been the last Democratic convention in Chicago in 1996; that event was an upbeat vehicle for Bill Clinton’s successful reelection campaign.
Instead, thanks to intense controversy over Israel’s lethal operations in Gaza and widespread global protests aimed partly at Israel’s allies and sponsors in Washington, plans are well underway for demonstrations in Chicago during the August 19 to 22 confab. Organizers say they expect as many as 30,000 protesters to gather outside Chicago’s United Center during the convention. As in the past, a key issue is how close the protests get to the actual convention. Obviously, demonstrators want delegates to hear their voices and the media to amplify their message. And police, Chicago officials, and Democratic Party leaders want protests to occur as far away from the convention as possible. How well these divergent interests are met will determine whether there is anything like the kind of clashes that dominated Chicago ’68.
There are, however, some big differences in the context surrounding the two conventions. Here’s why the odds of a 2024 convention showdown rivaling 1968 are actually fairly low.
Horrific as the ongoing events in Gaza undoubtedly are, and with all due consideration of the U.S. role in backing and supplying Israel now and in the past, the Vietnam War was a more viscerally immediate crisis for both the protesters who descended on Chicago that summer and the Americans watching the spectacle on TV. There were over a half-million American troops deployed in Vietnam in 1968, and nearly 300,000 young men were drafted into the Army and Marines that year. Many of the protesters at the convention were protesting their own or family members’ future personal involvement in the war, or an escape overseas beyond the Selective Service System’s reach (an estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada during the Vietnam War, and how to deal with them upon repatriation became a major political issue for years).
Even from a purely humanitarian and altruistic point of view, Vietnamese military and civilian casualties ran into the millions during the period of U.S. involvement. It wasn’t common to call what was happening “genocide,” but there’s no question the images emanating from the war (which spilled over catastrophically into Laos and especially Cambodia) were deeply disturbing to the consciences of vast numbers of Americans.
Perhaps a better analogy for the Gaza protests than those of the Vietnam era might be the extensive protests during the late 1970s and 1980s over apartheid in South Africa (a regime that enjoyed explicit and implicit backing from multiple U.S. administrations) and in favor of a freeze in development and deployment of nuclear weapons. These were significant protest movements, but still paled next to the organized opposition to the Vietnam War.
One reason the 1968 Chicago protests created such an indelible image is that the conflict outside on the streets was reflected in conflict inside the convention venue. For one thing, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey had not quelled formal opposition to his selection when the convention opened. He never entered or won a single primary. One opponent who did, Eugene McCarthy, was still battling for the nomination in Chicago. Another, Robert F. Kennedy, had been assassinated two months earlier (1972 presidential nominee George McGovern was the caretaker for Kennedy delegates at the 1968 convention). There was a highly emotional platform fight over Vietnam policy during the convention itself; when a “peace plank” was defeated, New York delegates led protesters singing “We Shall Overcome.” Once violence broke out on the streets, it did not pass notice among the delegates, some of whom had been attacked by police trying to enter the hall. At one point, police actually accosted and removed a TV reporter from the convention for some alleged breach in decorum.
By contrast, no matter what is going on outside the United Center, the 2024 Democratic convention is going to be totally wired for Joe Biden, with nearly all the delegates attending pledged to him and chosen by his campaign. Even aside from the lack of formal opposition to Biden, conventions since 1968 have become progressively less spontaneous and more controlled by the nominee and the party that nominee directs (indeed, the chaos in Chicago in 1968 encouraged that trend, along with near-universal use of primaries to award delegates, making conventions vastly less deliberative). While there may be some internal conflict on the platform language related to Gaza, it will very definitely be resolved long before the convention and far away from cameras.
Another significant difference between then and now is that convention delegates and Democratic elected officials generally will enter the convention acutely concerned about giving aid and comfort to the Republican nominee, the much-hated, much-feared Donald Trump. Yes, many Democrats hated and feared Richard Nixon in 1968, but Democrats were just separated by four years from a massive presidential landslide and mostly did not reckon how much Nixon would be able to straddle the Vietnam issue and benefit from Democratic divisions. That’s unlikely to be the case in August of 2024.
Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley was a major figure in the 1968 explosion in his city. He championed and defended his police department’s confrontational tactics during the convention. At one point, when Senator Abraham Ribicoff referred from the podium to “gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago,” Daley leaped up and shouted at him with cameras trained on his furious face as he clearly repeated an obscene and antisemitic response to the Jewish politician from Connecticut. Beyond his conduct on that occasion, “Boss” Daley was the epitome of the old-school Irish American machine politician and from a different planet culturally than the protesters at the convention.
Current Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, who was born the year of Daley’s death, is a Black progressive and labor activist who is still fresh from his narrow 2023 mayoral runoff victory over the candidate backed by both the Democratic Establishment and police unions. While he is surely wary of the damage anti-Israel and anti-Biden protests can do to the city’s image if they turn violent, Johnson is not without ties to protesters. He broke a tie in the Chicago City Council to ensure passage of a Gaza cease-fire resolution earlier this year. His negotiating skills will be tested by the maneuvering already underway with protest groups and the Democratic Party, but he’s not going to be the sort of implacable foe the 1968 protesters encountered.
The 1968 Democratic convention was from a bygone era of gavel-to-gavel coverage by the three broadcast-television networks that then dominated the media landscape and the living rooms of the country. When they were being bludgeoned by the Chicago police, protesters began chanting, “The whole world is watching,” which wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Today’s media coverage of major-party political conventions is extremely limited and (like coverage of other events) fragmented. If violence breaks out this time in Chicago, it will get a lot of attention, albeit much of it bent to the optics of the various media outlets covering it. But the sense in 1968 that the whole nation was watching in horror as an unprecedented event rolled out in real time will likely never be recovered.
lgherb it has certainly been infuriating to listen and watch what has been going on. George Lakoff helped with his concept of reframing and avoiding words the GOP had managed to redefine. His perception of what drives the conservatives was helpful also. I personally think Drew Westin did an even better job in Political Brain.
With the Internet becoming a more frequent source of news and information to many Americans, we will hopefully reach more who are looking for answers that make sense in the reality of the huge problems the GOP has brought down upon our house.
Given the smaller numbers identifying as GOP, we do not have so much of a house divided against itself. We do have a lot of respectful, considerate and helpful conversations we could begin and maintain.
I like these comments very much.
“…the logical conclusion drawn is that those who actively denigrate these words and concepts advocate the antonyms of them. Social, religious, economic, and intellectual freedom became abhorred on an almost social subconscious level.”
“…the GOP will have been silently working to build a neo-aristocracy characterized by very distinct ruling and working classes; limited social mobility, tight integration of church and state, and strict limits of personal freedom.”
Perhaps just as important is not letting the opportunity the GOP has given us – creating a significant distrust of their party in American voters – by making them distrust us as well.
The proposed campaign by the GOP to re-brand the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Socialist Party” returns me to my ongoing bewilderment of how United States citizens allowed the word “liberal” to be demonized by this same collection of elitists. Starting with the so-called “Reagan Revoltion” and continuing through today, the conservative movement has flashed into the consciousness of the voting public the equation of the word “liberal” with the concept of “extremely undesirable” or downright “un-American”.
This mantra became generally accepted by roughly 1/2 of the voting public for nearly three decades without ever being fundamentally analyzed. How often over the last 25 years during the ongoing tug-of-war for the consciousness of voters did anyone actually define the word “liberal”?
Once one researches the definitions and etymology of the word “liberal” and the related words and concepts of “liberty” and “liberalism”, the logical conclusion drawn is that those who actively denigrate these words and concepts advocate the antonyms of them. Social, religious, economic, and intellectual freedom became abhorred on an almost social subconscious level.
This propaganda fueled the engine of conservative sound bites for years until this golden fuel rod became spent, necessitating this new branding effort. In scripting a new propaganda campaign, the strategy remains the same: define the competition based on the worst fears of the at-large psyche while never actively and distinctly defining that which they truly advocate.
How long will it take with this new campaign for the public to come to the revelation that in framing the Democratic Party as the equivalent of communists/socialists/nazis that the GOP will have been silently working to build a neo-aristocracy characterized by very distinct ruling and working classes; limited social mobility, tight integration of church and state, and strict limits of personal freedom.
Errors and omissions.
IRV is Instant Recount Voting.
Just occurred to me that in cases like the Franken-Coleman race, if the number of contested ballots could not give either candidate the percent needed to win, the IRV could be done and possibly save the need for the accuracy recount.
Sports analogy for IRV versus one candidate only voting.
It is more like winning the World Series than the Superbowl.
Time to start gathering statements from the Socialist Party, socialist leaders and scholars to explain why we are NOT socialist in the sense they are accusing. Interestingly, the political socialism in Europe, as opposed to communism, is described as democratic socialism. We know the GOP misspelling is not ignorance.
I find it very amusing that Bopp thinks the Obama administration can accomplish all of those items “in a few short years”. Granted it is easier and faster to destroy than to build. We have just had a hopefully unforgettable lesson in this from the Bush administration.
The grown ups in this country know it is a mess and cleaning it up is not going to be easy or quick. The GOP is determined to make a nuisance of themselves and obstinately refuse to make some intelligent changes in the party. The longer they do that the harder it will be to recover.
I am becoming convinced this is the right time for it to fade away. Either America and the world choose to decrease consumerism, and increase humanism, while taking out the power groups that have foisted financial control on us to grow the elite class; or we will continue down the slippery slope of failed civilizations and extinction. (See Jared Diamond “Collapse” and John Kerry “The New War”.)
There is a strong belief that we need a 2 party system in this country. I agree that we should not have, for all practical discussion, a single party system. What I would like to see is a system that encourages the growth and development of new parties, so that the power is spread more instead of becoming too concentrated in the leaders of a specific party; while changes in demographics, culture and social issues change voters priorities at a faster rate. Any group that has been functioning long enough is likely to become mired in it’s traditions and obstinate devotion to out dated philosophies.
Instant recall voting (IRV) would promote this as well as severely cutting down the Florida, Ohio and Minnesota debacles. In being allowed to vote for candidates in order of preference, the computer program can be written to start recounting if no candidate has a large enough percent of the vote (determined by the governing body that declares the winner) to win. In the races where there are 3 strong candidates, 2 of the candidates will represent the thinking of a majority of the voters. One is a strong party, the other an emerging party. The third party is a strong party that is losing touch with the voters. The new party has grown to represent the growing numbers of voters whose beliefs are consistent with the paths that society has started to pursue.
As elections are run and votes are reported, emerging party candidates will have a better chance to find out how much real support they have. Members of the Democratic party might very well prefer to vote for Greens – except for the horror of the Republican winning a three way. When many voters switch to a new party, other voters will start paying more attention to those candidates, increasing their strength until it reaches a critical mass. Putting the obsolete [GOP] party in the minority, letting the remaining majority party and the new one begin the philosophical competition for votes based on ideology, policy, etc.
Over time our Broken Branch of Congress will function much better as will the better Executive and then Judicial branches.
Better Government for All.