Associated Press
Chicago police lead a demonstrator from Grant Park during demonstrations that disrupted the Democratic National Convention in August 1968.
The Democratic National Convention of August 1968 was the coup de grâce in the Democrats’ hapless attempts to keep Richard Nixon from winning the November election. When Democrats again meet in Chicago this August, what will it take for Joe Biden to prevent a variation on the theme? The answer begins and ends with Gaza.
I lived through these events as a young journalist. In case you didn’t, here’s a recap.
On March 12, 1968, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, as a peace candidate, nearly defeated President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. On March 16, seeing Johnson’s vulnerability, Bobby Kennedy entered the race as a second anti-war candidate and one with special appeal to African Americans. On March 31, Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.
But Kennedy, who became the front-runner, was assassinated after winning the California primary in June. That left Vice President Hubert Humphrey as the likely nominee. However, Humphrey could not bring himself to make a decisive break with Johnson’s war policy. So Democrats were badly divided going into their convention.
What happened next turned division into fiasco. Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators, the vast majority planning a peaceful protest, came to Chicago. But as New Left leader Tom Hayden later acknowledged, the smaller group of radicals deliberately provoked the Chicago police into a violent response.
And the police did not disappoint. The ensuing brutalization was later described in the official Walker Commission report as a “police riot.” The mayhem at Grant Park and on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago was echoed inside the hall.
Connecticut Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, far from a radical, nominated George McGovern (as a pure protest—McGovern wasn’t running), famously declaring, “With George McGovern as president, we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.” Mayor Richard J. Daley, sitting in the hall, responded with a stream of epithets. He later claimed he called Ribicoff a “faker.” Lip readers read Daley’s words as “You fucking kike!”
Though Humphrey belatedly embraced more of an anti-war position, it was too late.
Joe Biden begins with one big advantage. He will have a far more unified party inside the convention hall. But in the streets, there is likely to be the same dynamic of mostly peaceful demonstrators on Israel-Palestine, as well as a fringe bent on provoking violence. Mayor Daley, mercifully, is long gone; and the current mayor, Brandon Johnson, a progressive, will do everything he can to avert another police riot.
But to minimize the risks of another Chicago fiasco and damp down the risk of violent protests that associate his administration with chaos, Biden will need to move the Israel-Palestine mess to an entirely different phase. There needs to be no more bait and switch by Bibi Netanyahu, who one day says he will seriously negotiate a cease-fire and hostage deal and the next insists that he will invade Rafah.
Biden needs to resolve that he is done being played for a fool. Even if Biden does succeed in ending the Gaza war, beginning the process of a regional settlement, and even forcing the ouster of Netanyahu, the intoxication of student protest has taken on a life of its own. Pro-Palestinian protesters have added new demands, such as divestment, which were not part of the original protests.
Like Hayden in 1968, radicals are using liberals. Most critics of the Gaza war are not antisemites and most demonstrators are not resorting to violence. But the school year will soon be over, and the Chicago convention is the next logical target. Even if Biden does everything right, it will not be enough for the radicals, but the road to a relatively peaceful Chicago begins with a reversal of U.S. Israel policy and major steps toward peace in the Middle East.
The odds of drawing to an inside straight are about 1 in 12. Unless Biden drastically changes his strategy on constraining Netanyahu, those are about the odds of averting a Chicago debacle. Unlike poker players, Biden has some influence over what’s in the cards. It’s past time for him to use it.
