Dem
51
GOP
49
In August 1968, a foreign war was raging while the Democrats met in Chicago for their national convention. The sitting president decided not to run for reelection, so the Democrats nominated the sitting vice president, who really wasn't much involved in the president's conduct of the war. Nevertheless, thousands upon thousands of protesters descended upon the city, determined to show the Democrats that they did not like the war one bit. There were riots. The people watching on TV did not like what they saw on their little screens so they elected Richard Nixon. Here we go again.
The largest Palestinian community in the country is Chicago's Little Palestine and they are angry. Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network said: "We don't expect any changes—we're still anticipating that there will be tens of thousands of people in the streets." Hamza AbdulQader, a Chicago-based Palestinian nurse who went to Gaza to help the people there and then came back, said of Kamala Harris: "Unless she clearly takes a stance and says this is not okay, that door is shut."
Harris has been much more critical of Israel than Joe Biden, but certainly is not pro-Palestinian. She has rejected pro-Palestinians who have interrupted her events. At a rally in Detroit, when demonstrators refused to stop chanting, she shot back: "If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking." The audience cheered. In Arizona the day after, when she was interrupted, she called for a deal that had two components: (1) an immediate ceasefire and (2) release of all hostages. Biden has been trying to get that deal through for months, but Hamas is not interested because once the hostages are free, they have lost all their leverage.
The Palestinian community did get one major thing they wanted from Harris: She did not pick the strongly pro-Israel Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) as her running mate. Nonetheless, that didn't change anything. This is always the case with single-issue communities of any kind: giving them a big piece of what they want doesn't placate them at all. They want the whole enchilada—even if they are not Mexican. The Republican Party is much more homogeneous and usually doesn't have this problem. Although they are admittedly having it now, to a minor extent, with abortion. All of them want to ban abortion, but the disagreement is about whether to allow exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
The built-in problem the Democrats have is that they have a broad coalition with many factions, none of them is large enough to guarantee victory, but many of them are big enough to foment defeat. In 2000, supporters of Ralph Nader could have prevented the election of George W. Bush, but decided to teach the Democrats a lesson instead. In 2016, supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) could have prevented the election of Donald Trump, but decided to teach the Democrats a lesson instead. Will the story of 2024 ultimately be: The pro-Palestinians could have prevented the reelection of Donald Trump, but decided to teach the Democrats a lesson instead?
Deanna Othman, who was born and raised in Little Palestine, has been trying for months to evacuate her mother- and sister-in-law from Israel for medical reasons. She said of the upcoming demonstrations: "I think people really need to see it as the equivalent of the 1968 DNC in Chicago." She probably misses the irony that what the 1968 protesters effectively did was elect a president whose policies on the war were far, far, far, worse than the ones of the candidate they sank. It is not hard to defeat the merely bad if you are willing to accept the truly mindbogglingly horrendous.
Will history repeat itself? One big difference is that the mayor of Chicago is Brandon Johnson, not Richard Daley. Johnson wouldn't even be born until 8 years after the Chicago riot and has probably read every book on the riot and watched every news clip of it. He may be better equipped to deal with it, knowing what happened last time the Dems were in town. For one thing, he is for allowing protesters to march and wave signs, but not too close to the convention site. In addition the Chicago police have been training for this event for over a year. The flatfoots will not be caught flatfooted.
If the protesters agree to demonstrate in their assigned area, far from the convention site, the police will be there in force but will leave them alone. But if they try to march outside their assigned area, there will be trouble, probably with tear gas, flashbangs, helicopters, and other crowd-control measures. This is the Democrats' nightmare scenario. It's not the protest that hurt Hubert Humphrey, it was the violence. But if the Democrats grant the Palestinians their wishes, there go all the Nikki Haley Republicans (see point 1 in the item above), the evangelicals, and significant segments of the rest of the country. If Mayor Johnson can pull this off, he will be regarded as one of the greatest political leaders of his generation and will surely be bound for bigger things someday. (V)