20 August 2024
The more that things change...
At the risk of sounding just like a hundred other commentators, it seems as if the only logical thing to write about today is the resemblances between the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the one that begins today. I only hope I can find some things to say that everyone else hasn’t.
Some of my readers may be old enough to remember the events that unfolded on TV that August, but I was only two years old. My dad attended the 1976 DNC in New York City as an alternate delegate, but I don’t think he went to Chicago in 1968; he certainly never talked about having done so (if he did), and I doubt he would have left my mom to deal with a toddler for days on her own.
So I have to rely on historical records for my perspective. And a very interesting one that I happened upon was the City of Chicago’s official report, “The Strategy of Confrontation.” Although it obviously supports the response of the city (as opposed to supporting the protesters), it is nevertheless a useful look at what happened and why.
It has to be noted that then, as now, Chicago was under the the control of Democrats. In particular, it was under the control of infamously corrupt Mayor Richard J. Daley. But unlike then, the Democrats in charge today are far more likely to side (secretly or not) with the tens of thousands of pro-Hamas protesters that are expected to descend on Chicago’s streets, just as the supposedly anti-war protesters descended in 1968.
I said “supposedly” for a reason. Although the protests of 1968 were positioned to be anti-war protests, in reality they were focused primarily upon hatred of the police, more like anti-authoritarian Marxist protests. And the leaders, at least, were a mix of anti-Western and anti-authoritarian Marxists.
One of those leaders who looks a lot like the leaders of today’s Progressive Democrats was David Dellinger. He was an Ivy League graduate with wealthy New England parents, but he turned his back on all of it and proceeded to ‘slum it,’ including a stint as an ambulance driver for the pro-Communist factions in the Spanish Civil War. He openly opposed American entrance into WWII, and continued to be an anti-war agitator even after Pearl Harbor, for which he was ultimately jailed. Like most of the other leaders of the DNC protests in 1968, he had traveled to North Vietnam.
Another of the leaders, an early Long-March promoter who organized subversion of people in the military, was Rennie Davis. He was personally invited to North Vietnam in 1967. After his sentence for his role in the Chicago rioting was overturned, he later became a New Age cultist and, ironically, a venture capitalist.
Tom Hayden—referred to in the Chicago report as “The Maoist Messiah from Michigan”—was one of the chief organizers of Students for a Democratic Society, which had gotten in trouble with its parent organization, the League for Industrial Democracy, over its refusal to denounce communism. Hayden had participated in organizing protests and riots at Columbia University, and he, too, had gone to North Vietnam. (He later married Jane Fonda.)
Jerry Rubin, a leader of the Yippies—a movement that combined Leftist politics with hippie counterculture—went to Cuba rather than North Vietnam. He had been a protester throughout the 1960s, particularly at Berkley, where he had attended but dropped out, and had been arrested a number of times in connection with those protests. His main mode of operation was pulling ridiculous stunts to mock the Establishment. Ironically, he also later ended up diving headfirst into capitalist success as a stockbroker and businessman.
Another Yippie founder was Abbie Hoffman, a middle-class New England scion who had been in trouble since high school or before. His behavior was a pattern that would continue to shape the Yippie movement. The Yippies made numerous threats before the 1968 DNC, such as contaminating the city water supply with LSD. Whether the threats were meant to be satirical or not, the authorities had to take them seriously.
Interestingly, the “The Strategy of Confrontation” names only these five men as “radical leaders,” omitting John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale, who were also charged after the rioting.
Like today’s pro-Hamas protesters, this group of men had been planning a disruption of the 1968 DNC for many months. In early August, they held a training class to teach techniques to use during the protests, including the construction of homemade weapons and the use of store-bought caustic substances (investigators contributing to the report noted a spike in the purchases of such substances in Chicago stores before the DNC). Furthermore:
All potential participants in the demonstrations were advised to try to be photographed while being arrested and several demonstrators arrested carried lists of telephone numbers of local and national news media. Violence in this situation was inevitable, expected and even sought. […] They were in contact with a “Committee of 100 Lawyers” to give them legal assistance in case of arrest and spoke of a bail bond fund.
If this all sounds very familiar, that’s because the same tactics have been used by Leftist protesters ever since.
Before the DNC, the city attempted to come to an agreement with the protest leaders about the locations and nature of the protests. The permits requested by the protest leaders stipulated gatherings of upwards of 150,000 people (although the actual number who showed up at the protests was less than a tenth of that) in the vicinity of the International Amphitheatre, where the Convention was to be held. They also requested permission for thousands to sleep in city parks, in contravention of city ordinances. These permits were denied on the grounds of security for the DNC (in the case of Amphitheatre protests) and health and sanitation (in the case of sleeping in city parks).
City officials tried repeatedly to get the protest leaders to agree to other venues, but they would not. The protest leaders framed this to the press as a refusal to let them exercise their First Amendment rights. Interestingly, the press had filmed interviews that contradicted that framing:
Extensive TV interviews were filmed immediately following the court proceedings which showed the National Mobilization Committee and Youth International Party refusing all alternate parade routes offered by the authorities [and] would have done much to ameliorate the criticism that the protesters had been offered no legitimate outlet. These films were never shown.
Clearly the media was then, as now, in sympathy with the protesters. The report itself quotes Richard Strout, for The Christian Science Monitor:
The news media in this city may be indicted for inciting to violence. The mildest parade of young people brings a TV camera crew like a hook-and-ladder truck to a three alarm fire. Any youngster who will denounce the authorities finds himself surrounded by a ring of extended microphones. The press has talked so much about violence that it has a vested interest in violence. It will look silly if it doesn’t get it. This is a case where 'the medium is the message'.
In fact, two future-famous reporters—Dan Rather and Mike Wallace—were on the scene, and seemingly on the side of the protesters. Dan Rather ended up being struck by a private security officer at the Convention (not, as initially claimed, by police). Mike Wallace “grabbed the face of a Chicago Police Captain. The captain hit Wallace, allegedly in self-defense. After the incident, the participants shook hands and agreed to drop the matter.”
As it turned out, “to the surprise of the news media, and many of the people who had witnessed the Chicago "police riot", the general public did not take their side.” In fact, most Americans were appalled at the protesters’ behavior and in support of the police response. It’s questionable, however, whether this will be the case if history repeats itself in 2024.
Then, as now, there were some leaders in the Democratic Party who supported the protesters, or at least their purported cause. And some delegates were among those arrested for mayhem. But I see two things being different now. One is that the protesters then were largely part of organic anti-war movements. Their leaders had come out of Marxist-connected organizations, but there is nothing to indicate that either Russia or China were actively sponsoring them. Contrast that with the current pro-Palestinian protests, which started appearing the very day after the Hamas attack, with pre-printed signs and identical tents.
Another difference is that rejecting a war that was causing the deaths of American youth in a distant country for vague anti-communist reasons taps into a much different part of the American psyche than rejecting the state of Israel and the Jews. As stated famously by William Tecumseh Sherman, “War is hell.” And the longer a war drags on with no conclusion, the less popular it is likely to become.
But three generations of American adults have been raised knowing about the horrors of the Holocaust (from among the late Millennials onwards, American children are more likely to have seen the Holocaust downplayed or ignored by their teachers). Hatred of Jews is seen—at least by those who were not taught that hatred from the cradle—as one of the most horrifying types of bigotry a person can hold. It’s understandable that many of the pro-Hamas protesters are trying to claim that they are only “anti-Israel” or “anti-Zionist,” even though it’s clear from their rhetoric and behavior that they are fully antisemitic (a fancy word coined by a 19th-century German because it sounded more ‘scientific’ than Judenhass—hatred of Jews).
Is it likely that the whole U.S. will be converted to the anti-Israel view in as short a period as it got on board with the anti-war views of the 1960s? I would never say never. But one of the problems the Democrats have right now is that they cannot openly embrace the anti-Israel cause without alienating millions of Americans who might otherwise vote for Kamala Harris. At the same time, they are under direct threat from the protesters for not doing exactly that. How can they convince the pro-Hamasniks that Harris will turn against Israel once she becomes POTUS without tipping that hand to the public?
One final resemblance I’ll touch on is between Hubert Humphrey and Kamala Harris. Both were vice-presidents to increasingly unpopular presidents. Both had the nomination largely sewn up in advance. Humphrey, like Harris, participated in no primary elections, instead inheriting his delegates from the outgoing President Johnson. But unlike Harris, Humphrey faced real opposition at the Convention—something the Democrats would try to avoid in the future with their superdelegate system.
Many have pointed to the hypocrisy of the Democrats building a wall around their Convention and requiring I.D. in order to enter (in 1968, delegate passes were faked by protesters). But I have to wonder if these security measures will be enough to protect the party leaders. Unlike in 1968, the current mayor of Chicago is anti-police and unlikely to allow cops to use anything resembling ‘excessive force.’ Only a tiny number of National Guard forces are “on stand-by.” As of this writing (7pm Monday), a fence has already been breached once by protesters.
I was a little surprised that—having already secured the nomination officially for Kamala Harris by Zoom—the Democrats did not simply cancel their Convention. Perhaps it would have looked too cowardly. Or maybe it would have angered too many people who stood to profit from their big show being in town.
But I will not be surprised if they decide to dismiss the Convention early if the protesters become sufficiently threatening.
Thoughts?
'The press has talked so much about violence that it has a vested interest in violence. It will look silly if it doesn’t get it. This is a case where 'the medium is the message'.....................................................................
Really that kinda says it all. Appreciate the reminder Celia that we have seen something similar to this before, although as you say, now these protestors are obviously backed to the hilt by foreign interests. Also the American public has been relentlessly propagandized to a degree never before possible. It's concerning for sure, but seems to me the whole convention is political theatre at this point anyway as they've already chosen Kamala and Walz.
Celia, this article is as good as, if not better, than most of the stuff I had been reading from TFP in recent months. It's informative, yet you write from the heart too. You're on a roll. Thank you.