Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The revolution will be supervised.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

You are here: Home / 2024 Activism / Interesting Read: As Democrats gather in Chicago, the spirit of ’68 is a painful memory

Interesting Read: As Democrats gather in Chicago, the spirit of ’68 is a painful memory

by | 156 Comments

This post is in: , ,

I was twelve in the summer of ’68, so my memories of the Chicago convention are spotty. But certainly even a lot of older / more attentive Democrats weren’t fully aware of some of the backstage maneuvers Joel Achenbach discusses here [gift link]:

… The return to Chicago this week comes amid echoes of 1968. The party has once again had to find its footing when the sitting president made a stunning decision to not seek reelection. Thousands of protesters are expected to march outside the convention and law enforcement is prepared for the possibility of violent disruptions. Cultural and generational divides in the party are pronounced. And there has been gunfire on the campaign trail, a jangling reminder that an election year can be turned upside down at the speed of an assassin’s bullet.

And yet despite those echoes, the Democrats are gliding into Chicago with little or no resemblance to the polarized and grieving party of 1968.

Unlike in 1968, the Democratic ticket is settled. The poll numbers are rising. The party activists are euphoric, with enthusiastic crowds greeting Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on the campaign trail.

And, unlike in 1968, there’s just not much left to decide in Chicago. When President Joe Biden stepped aside, some party leaders and pundits advocated for a protracted nomination contest culminating at the convention. With stunning speed that idea evaporated. In just days, Harris became the consensus choice and is already officially the nominee.

“Democrats have already done the main thing that was necessary to avoid the chaos of 1968: They’ve unified in advance,” said David Farber, a historian at the University of Kansas…

For America, 1968 was the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War. The war split the Democratic Party. Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, an antiwar candidate, ran a stunningly close second to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York announced his opposition to Johnson’s war policies and jumped into the race. Johnson, painfully aware that he was bleeding party support, shocked the nation on March 31 with a televised announcement that he would not seek reelection…

By that point Humphrey had entered the race. But Humphrey did not compete in any primaries, which in those days were few in number. Party bosses and governors controlled most of the convention delegates. Humphrey went to Chicago with what appeared to be enough pledged delegates to get the nomination.

But it wasn’t a done deal. The situation invited plenty of backroom negotiations and Hail Mary schemes by Democrats opposed to Humphrey. McCarthy had hundreds of delegates from the primaries. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, also a war opponent, had entered the contest just two weeks before the convention. Some party leaders hoped to lure Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, still shattered by the assassination of his brother, into the race…

There was even some possibility that Johnson himself — nursing his political wounds at his Texas ranch — might storm into Chicago to reclaim what he felt was rightfully his. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley hoped to lure him back into the race...

This summer, a coalition of 200 organizations is planning protests and marches in Chicago during the convention. Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters are expected to demonstrate against the Biden administration’s support for Israel.

The number of protesters this year could be greater than in 1968, when many antiwar protesters chose to stay home amid signs that Chicago could become a bloodbath. Protest organizers had predicted 100,000 people, maybe even 300,000, would descend on Chicago. The actual number was closer to 15,000…

A strike by city electrical workers greatly limited what networks could televise live from the streets of Chicago. The live reports from inside the hall were interspersed with delayed footage showing police beating protesters and, later, journalists and bystanders. An official investigation later described the events as a “police riot.”

“The whole world is watching!” protesters chanted…

Historically, Democrats were known for disputatious conventions. They were the scruffier of the two major political parties. They had a broader, more diverse coalition, one that ranged from conservative Southerners to Northeastern liberals to blue-collar union members. As the party has grown more ideologically uniform, and its leaders more determined to project unity, the Democratic conventions have become less cantankerous.

“They began to take on the appearance, dare I say, of Republican conventions. Abided by their timetables. Very little strife on the floor,” said Wilkie, the journalist.

“There’s no such thing as a rowdy convention or one that’s much fun to cover anymore,” Wilkie said…

This is not the first time the Democrats have returned to Chicago for their convention. They did so in 1996, and exorcised a lot of the demons of ’68 as they held a lovefest for the incumbents, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

The country was at peace, and the polls for Democrats were blissful. The party partied. After 28 years, Chicago ’68 looked like a terrible but fleeting phase the party had endured…

Here’s hoping for a feel-good 1996 remix…

Reader Interactions

156Comments

  1. 1.

    BR

    I don’t have the nerves to handle the week so I will probably just watch a livestream of Harris’s speech on Thursday but otherwise tune out this blog and all news/social media. A credulous MSM is going to be looking for Dems in Disarray, and far right nonsense and the protests outside will catch their attention. They are desperate to prevent a convention bounce and there are plenty of agitators and useful idiots who will feed their need.​

  2. 2.

    BlueDWarrior

    I highly doubt anything untoward will happen inside the hall besides someone giving a bad speech maybe. Outside the hall is a crapshoot because all it will take is one or two people to do something especially dumb, or one or two interlopers to successfully agitate, and something *might* pop off.

    Just a lot of questions and not a lot of time to answer them, convention starts in what, 20 hours give or take?

  3. 3.

    Mousebumples

    @BR: and I’ve got a busy week, so I’ll just catch individual events as they’re put out on social media (or front paged).

    I’m hoping they do the virtual roll call across the country again. That was great in 2020. (and I’d watch that again!)

  4. 4.

    ssdd

    WaPo, master of boffsides! Gift link: https://wapo.st/4cAH1UW

    Everyone’s talking about Chicago and 1968. But is the vibe more 2008?

    And yet:

    “There’s a sense of possibility, a sense of movement, to the campaign,” says David Axelrod, a former Obama senior adviser.

    “I haven’t seen anything like this since Barack Obama was our nominee,” says Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

    “I have that 2008 feeling,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told a crowd at a Kamala Harris event on Friday.

    These four days in Chicago belong to Vice President Harris, who will be reintroduced to her party and prime-time viewers as the Democratic nominee. They also, to a lesser extent, belong to President Joe Biden, whose achievements will be celebrated as a joint victory for him and the vice president who replaced him on the ticket. They do not belong to Obama, whose presence at the United Center will be confined to his Tuesday night speech. “His speech is not about him,” says former adviser Valerie Jarrett.

    Parallel to ’68 worries emerges a refreshed ’08 vibe — more than nostalgic and, until recently, believed to be missing in action. Hopey-changey and “Yes we can,” but modified for the moment and the movement coalescing around Harris’s candidacy.

    Less about a person, and more about the idea.

  5. 5.

    raven

    I was in the barracks at Ft Lewis waiting to ship out! I watched the cops light up my people and it only reinforced how I felt.

  6. 6.

    HumboldtBlue

    Pulling out Chicago ’68 is an easy way to produce stories and opinions. This week will bear no resemblance to what happened in ’68, and while there will be protestors and the always-present right-wing bad actors, I have a sense Chicago city officials will be prepared.

    In preparing for the convention, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has stood with Chicago police saying the city will not tolerate any chaos from protesters. Johnson, a former organizer for the city’s teachers union, rode into office on a wave of support from the very activists planning to protest the convention. Some top union ofificals have continued marching with the same groups planning to protest Democratic leaders.
    “Let me be absolutely clear: The city of Chicago is ready to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention,” John Robertson, the city’s chief operating officer, said last week. “We are here in this moment to show that Chicago can shine. We are here to demonstrate that in this moment that we can host the most democratic of activities … and to provide space and room for the full expression of our First and Fourth Amendment rights.”

  7. 7.

    Jackie

    I was 13. 1968 was a news jumble of MLK Jr and Bobby Kennedy assassins, coupled with multiple anti war protests. We had ONE TV, and Dad always watched the news during dinner – which meant we ALL watched the news… I observed dad going from semi supporting the Vietnam war to shifting against. I introduced dad to Dion’s Abraham Martin and John.

    https://youtu.be/a5hFMy4pTrs?si=SxjeyMIcGLhG7QIm

  8. 8.

    middlelee

    As the Democrats gather, I ask myself, “To whom is the spirit of ’68 a painful memory?”

    We are not fighting an idiotic war, which I seem to recall was the cause of the protests back then.  It was 56 years ago.  If it’s a painful memory, perhaps it’s time to quit gazing backwards and look forward, concentrating on the work we need to do.

    My painful memories are about the Reagans, the Bush family, and worst of all, formerPresident Trump.  I don’t need to go back to my late twenties to dredge up some painful memories.

    What Washington Post writer threw up that lede?  I canceled my subscription so can’t read the article.

  9. 9.

    mrmoshpotato

    The return to Chicago this week comes amid echoes of 1968

    And then he goes on to repeatedly contradict that sentence.

    All the eye rolls, Katie!

  11. 11.

    TS

    WaPo and the rest of the media desperate to have controversy in Chicago – trying to manufacture it with the article about 1968.

    Not going to happen. The changeover to Harris/Walz has been amazing to watch, not a sign of anyone in disarray except the weird old guy and the political media.

  12. 12.

    Chet Murthy

    @middlelee:

    My painful memories are about the Reagans, the Bush family, and worst of all, formerPresident Trump.  I don’t need to go back to my late twenties to dredge up some painful memories.

    Amen.  I have some bad memories of RaYgUn, but even those are a little vague.  My really bad memories start with The Chimperor and of course the Shiatgibbon.  There’s no need for us to look backward a half-century, when a half-decade suffices.

  13. 13.

    Starfish

    Let’s talk about the 1964 DNC where the national Democratic Party sat an all white delegation from Mississippi. Here is Fannie Lou Hamer’s speech at the DNC where she is talking about how worker suppression in Mississippi worked.

  14. 14.

    SpaceUnit

    Yeah, this is a lot of idle daydreaming by the beltway press.  They’d love to see a bunch of violence and then a rift develop in the party so they could sit back and make tut-tut noises.  1968 my ass.

  15. 15.

    Lyrebird

    @middlelee: Thanks for sharing your take.  And for cancelling your WaPo subscription!

    And thanks Anne Laurie for the Macarena memories!  I wasn’t on the planet for ’68, fwiw, but I surely do remember learning the Macarena from watching that convention!

    We’re gonna GO GO GO

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    Just about the only real similarity to 1968 is the location. So much has changed. The Democrats, the national situation, the city, all very different than they were 56 years ago. Drawing the analogy is just lazy.

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chet Murthy: The thing about Reagan was that he was genuinely popular– certainly not unanimously, but he had a solid majority once the early-80s recession was over. His annihilation of Walter Mondale in 1984, while I was living in what was then deep-red suburban territory, was what gave me a bone-deep intuition that there are NOT more of us than there are of them, and I’ve never been entirely able to shake it.

  20. 20.

    Chet Murthy

    @BR: boy howdy, that is some clever social media person on it!  I have to believe this was a clever way to remind people of the recent story about Harris bogarting a big bag of Doritos after TCFG won, not even sharing a chip with Doug.  A way to say “we know why we’re here, we know what the task is, and we’re not waverin’.”

    Love it.

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    @ssdd:

    The Obamas haven’tlived in Chicago since they moved to the White House in 2009. Still, the vestiges linger — particularly in Hyde Park, the South Side neighborhood where the former president lived and worked for nearly a quarter-century. A plaque in an otherwise unremarkable strip mall marks where Obama and his wife, Michelle, shared their first kiss. There’s a “President’s Table” at Valois, Obama’s old breakfast standby, and a menu touting his favorite orders.

    I always hated that plaque, it seemed kind of stalker-ish to me.

  23. 23.

    JoyceH

    Memories! In 1968, I was a geeky teenager obsessing over politics for some reason. I followed the convention avidly. Anyone else remember those nasty exchanges between William F Buckley and Gore Vidal? Must See TV!

  25. 25.

    jlowe

    Wow. “. . . the spirit of ’68 is a painful memory.” Pretty desperate there, WaPo, trying to make this bit of distant history a part of the current narrative. Is the newshole really so big that you need to stuff it with this kind of fluff? What’s the matter, one of the most dramatic electoral turnabouts in recent times not enough material to work with?

  26. 26.

    CaseyL

    PSA:  If anyone here wonders whether their SSN was among the hundreds of millions compromised by the  National Public Data breach, Time magazine has a link to an outfit, Pentester, which will check for you.

    Here’s a link to the Time magazine article, which contains a link to the Pentester search window.

    I’d already assumed my info was breached, and had contacted the three major credit reporting agencies to put a freeze on my account when news of the breach first came out.

    I checked anyway, and sure enough…  Bloody hell.

  27. 27.

    Chet Murthy

    @Matt McIrvin:

    was what gave me a bone-deep intuition that there are NOT more of us than there are of them, and I’ve never been entirely able to shake it.

    You and me both!  It seemed like being a Reaganite was cool, the done thing, in my youth.  Hell, I was one, until my mom woke me up with the truth about what RaYgUn was doing to Medicare (which was the first step down the path to realizing that they were rotten thru and thru).  But yeah, I still worry that we’re not the majority.  And, honestly, Biden’s win in 2020 didn’t vanquish those worries.

  30. 30.

    Chet Murthy

    @CaseyL:

    contacted the three major credit reporting agencies to put a freeze on my account

    Can I second this ?  Many years ago, when the Equifax breach happened, I read about freezing your account and that’s what I did.  It means that no third party can search for your credit file — so for instance, to open a credit card account, or get a loan, etc.  There are “credit monitoring services” that will send you an alert when somebody does these things, but a freeze means they literally cannot.  So for instance, if you want to get a new credit card, you have to unfreeze those accounts, wait for your application to go thru, and then refreeze.

    I think this is much simpler and safer than signing up with a monitoring service.  Not to mention cheaper.  I have two credit cards, both of which I’ve had for a long, long time.  I see no reason to get a new one at the moment, so frozen those credit files will stay.

  31. 31.

    mrmoshpotato

    @TS:

    The changeover to Harris/Walz has been amazing to watch, not a sign of anyone in disarray except the weird old guy and the political media. 

    True!  I was freaking out for a couple days after Joe’s announcement, but it was a masterful move that they’d orchestrated perfectly behind the scenes.

  34. 34.

    wjca

    @BR: Walz just posted Harris getting some Doritos

    Someone on the linked thread asks why them grabbing junk food feels like us.  Whereas Trump eating junk food seems weird.

    I think it comes down to them being, basically, middle class Americans eating what they grew up eating.  Whereas TCFG has always tried to pretend (not that he fools anyone outside his cult) he’s an upperclass/elite type.  And everybody is pretty sure (perhaps incorrectly, but sure nonetheless) that rich folks don’t dine on fast food.  Even home delivered fast food.

  35. 35.

    BR

    @wjca:

    Someone else pointed out that Trump only eats McDonalds but has probably never actually bought the food himself from one.

  36. 36.

    Starfish

    @BR: So far, I am seeing “nature is healing” stories about the current ongoing events. Michelle Obama is going to speak at the DNC which feels a little odd, because given that she does not want to be a politician, this is a very politically visible thing to do; but everyone loves her so I am happy that she is speaking.

    LGM posted a great link to a positive NYT article about Harris’s influence in the Biden administration.

  38. 38.

    Starfish

    @wjca: The way he tried to feed fast food to athletes visiting the White House as if visiting was not supposed to be some sort of special and memorable event. What a jerk.

  39. 39.

    eclare

    @Jackie:

    I think he is the one who spoke too.  Besides being eloquent he also told a funny story about Rosalynn bringing homemade pimento cheese and a loaf of bread on airplane flights.  She made sandwiches and passed them out to everyone.

  40. 40.

    eclare

    @wjca:

    A photo of TCFG eating KFC on his jet comes across very differently than Harris and Walz stopping at a gas station for road snacks.

  41. 41.

    pajaro

    I lived in Chicago in 1968.  I participated in some of the demonstrations, as did my brother and some friends from out of town. As an anti-war individual, it  never occurred to me not to demonstrate, given that the party was about to nominate someone who had not bothered to enter a single primary.  In the end, of course, we probably helped Nixon’s messaging, although God knows none of us wanted him.

    It’s not going to be easier for Harris to repudiate Biden than it was for Humphrey to repudiate LBJ, so she will not be able to give the demonstrators what they want.  I hope that, unlike us, they will loudly make their case against US policy, without trying to take down the nominee.

  42. 42.

    pluky

    @wjca: Because TFG is not only wealthy (perhaps not as much as he claims!), but he’s also a native NYer. In other words, in a city with the  best of all the world’s cuisines available, for delivery even, why this fixation on junk fast food?

  43. 43.

    Tim in SF

    We should have had the convention in PA.

    I’ll never understand why we don’t put it in the closest swing states with the most electoral votes, every time.

  45. 45.

    mrmoshpotato

    @BR: Here are a couple replies to that post.

     

    CapsWino‬ ‪@capswino.bsky.social‬

    10m

    As with everything else, he is so weird about it. He eats New York pizza with a knife and fork. He orders McDonald’s for national championship athletes who went to the White House before NIL, many of whom probably didn’t get many shots at a world-class meal. Just weird.

     

    ‪Chris Peterson‬ ‪@realchrispeterson.bsky.social‬

    14m

    It’s because they are normal and he is a big weirdo generally.

  46. 46.

    Chet Murthy

    @Tim in SF: Looking at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Democratic_National_Conventions#List_of_Democratic_National_Conventions

    it seems maybe at least since 2008 that’s been the case pretty often: CO (which was, back  in 08, a swing state, no?), NC, PA, WI.  I certainly agree that while sure, IL and Chicago are great places, it doesn’t help so much; OTOH, it’s central to the Rust Belt, and maybe that helps just by being near them all?  That is to say, having the DNC in CHI is about The Blue Wall?  Maybe?  Idunno.

  47. 47.

    Bobby Thomson

    The youngest voters in ’68 are now SEVENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD.

    The frontrunner was not murdered only months before the election.

    There is no draft.

    With all due respect to HHH, Kamala Harris is no Humphrey.  Minnesotan Walz isn’t even Humphrey.

    Running mate Ed Muskie was so stiff he made John Kerry and Mitt Romney look like headbangers.

    Democrats were still relying on Texas and other southern states to win and California was safely Republican.

    Registered voters were significantly whiter.

     

    Historical parallels are limited.

  48. 48.

    dm

    I was 12 when the 1968 Democratic Convention took place.  I remember the scenes of the police beating members of the press.  Middle-class white boy that I was, I thought that was a stunning violation of “the rules”.  If they were beating the press, they must have something to hide.

    Then, of course, there was the trial of the Chicago Seven, with Bobby Seale bound and gagged.

    Well, it was eye-opening.

  49. 49.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @CaseyL: thank you . I had no idea this breach happened. My year has already had lots of other situations in it..I’ll click through.

  50. 50.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Chet Murthy: There are only so many cities with the necessary hospitality and infrastructure to host a national party convention.  The conventions in many swing states bent the standards a little bit.

  51. 51.

    SpaceUnit

    @KatKapCC:

    That’s funny.  He really would be there for twenty minutes.

     

    ETA:  And if you were the person taking his order it would feel like twenty hours.

  52. 52.

    Shalimar

    @middlelee: 60 Minutes’ (1986, I think?) story on Reagan’s possible dementia was their lowest-rated episode ever.  They got hate mail.  People did not want to accept that Reagan was incompetent.

  53. 53.

    randy khan

    About the only person attending the convention who actually remembers 1968 will be Joe Biden.  I was 8 in 1968 and I know about it only from reading later accounts.  (Abbie Hoffman’s probably is the most interesting, if not entirely reliable.)

    I say this because I doubt the current Democratic Party or anyone involved in hosting the convention has any painful memories to worry about.

  54. 54.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @CaseyL: I put a freeze on my credit accounts (the 3 credit reporting agencies) several years ago (5?) when there was a large publicized data breach. Good idea! Since then, I unfroze the accounts temporarily once (one of the agencies made it a PITA) when I signed up for smart cell phone coverage. Other than that, I’ve been good. Don’t need any more credit cards. It’s a big relief. Nobody is checking or getting any credit in my name!

  56. 56.

    wjca

    @CaseyL: If anyone here wonders whether their SSN was among the hundreds of millions compromised by the  National Public Data breach, Time magazine has a link to an outfit, Pentester, which will check for you.

    My recollection (vague though it is) is that there was (is?) provision for free ongoing credit checks from this.  At least, I think this is why I’m getting monthly reports from Experian.  Haven’t had to freeze my credit cards yet.  But keeping an eye on it.

    Might be worth checking on this, if your ID comes up.

  58. 58.

    xephyr

    I was 16 and was just beginning to aspire to political junkiedom. I remember the chaos and all the press, but most of my concern was related to the Vietnam War, as my two older brothers were 17 and 18. I’m glad that madness will be avoided this time, but as we know all too well, sometimes democracy is a messy business, especially when one of the parties no longer believes in it. 78 more days…

  59. 59.

    Bupalos

    @BR: I don’t spend much time with cnn or abc or cbs or really any of the general mainstream stuff, but when I do lately it really looks like the narratives that they’re favoring are about Trump falling apart, rambling, not being disciplined, and relying on personal attacks. I feel like it’s 2-1 positive stuff for us now. People are so convinced that can’t happen that they aren’t noticing it is.

  60. 60.

    SpaceUnit

    So we’re getting Doritos in the National Divorce?  I didn’t see that coming.  Is pizza in play?  We should make a play to get pizza.

     

    And tacos.

  61. 61.

    Chet Murthy

    @SpaceUnit: And tacos.

    Surely we have all Mexican food, maybe all ethnic food of all kinds?  I mean, we’ve had the taco trucks since 2016 right?   Well I’m still bitter that there isn’t one on my block. The nearest one is like a mile away.

  65. 65.

    FastEdD

    In 1968, I was 17 and I lived 15 miles south of Chicago. I had been to many anti war protests, some of them with my Mom and Dad. During the convention I wasn’t there to protest, I was there to look at guitars. The cops chased a bunch of us down the street and tear gassed us, but I managed to get to my Grandma’s place in Marina City without getting arrested. This time. These are not fond memories. Yes it was a cop riot. I suspect the police will be better behaved this time, and I hope the media is following what goes on inside the convention.

  68. 68.

    blackmtn

    @Bobby Thomson: Good points! However in 1968, you couldn’t vote unless you were 21! (Yes, I was 18 that year and didn’t get to vote against Nixon until I was 21, at which point the voting age had been changed to 18).

  70. 70.

    Kayla Rudbek

    I wish they had taco trucks that came around like ice cream trucks. I actually saw an ice cream truck right off Brood X Hatchery Loop (pretty much my neighborhood) tonight as we were heading home from our bike ride. Usually they tend to go over to the HOA pool and set up there.  Of course what I really miss is the food cart in Madison, Wisconsin that sold these wonderful things that had a round core of red bean paste, a covering of a sticky rice flour, and were rolled in a thick coating of sesame seeds and then fried. My doctor would probably freak out about the carbs but I still want the recipe.

    And as a Gen Xer, I’m tired of the national media being stuck in the 1960s-1980s narrative.

  73. 73.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @HumboldtBlue: Looks like he freaked his SS detail out a little bit,  running ahead of them.

    ETA: MagdaInBlack was ahead of me at #71. GMTA and all that.

  75. 75.

    CaseyL

    I was 12 in ’68, and barely aware of politics at all. The day Bobby was killed, our school let out early, and I understood what had happened, but only had a vague idea, if that, of why it was important.

    Now, after quadrennial instances of putatively left-wing groups ratfucking Democrats, my attitude toward the demonstrations has changed quite a bit. I don’t doubt the passion and sincerity of most of the demonstrators, but the leadership – the Yippies, Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin in particular – to my mind were prototype ratfuckers. They wanted to burn The System down and by golly they succeeded, at least insofar as they burned down any chance of the Democratic ticket winning that year.

    But no more then than now did they anticipate – or, more accurately, care – which side of the political spectrum would come out ahead after the system was burned down. It wasn’t “the Left,” that’s for damn sure.

    So my attitude towards organized protests, especially when the people organizing them are loudly proclaiming that their aim is to disrupt the convention and do political harm to the Democrats, is considerably less sympathetic than it once was.

  76. 76.

    Craig

    @Chet Murthy: I remember being a preteen and horrified that people couldn’t connect that Reagan was a professional actor and all the shitty policy coming out of the GOP. Thank god for punk rock, and hip hop.

  77. 77.

    Chet Murthy

    @CaseyL:

    So my attitude towards organized protests, especially when the people organizing them are loudly proclaiming that their aim is to disrupt the convention and do political harm to the Democrats, is considerably less sympathetic than it once was.

    Thank you, very well put.  I look at Chicago’s mayor brandon Johnson, and how he can at the same time be clear that he thinks what’s going on in Gaza is a genocide, and still be steadfast that the convention will come off peacefully.  He’s inside the tentAnd he’s not pissing on anybody.  He’s making his views known, But he’s not going to burn down anything.  Because maybe there’s something more important  that he and The Democrats are trying to achieve this year.

  79. 79.

    RaflW

    @BlueDWarrior: “I highly doubt anything untoward will happen inside the hall besides someone giving a bad speech maybe.”

    I believe I saw that Gov. Kathy Hochul is speaking at the DNC, so to my mind, there’s no ‘maybe’ about it.

  80. 80.

    PatrickG

    Off topic: WaterGirl says we’re only $250 away from meeting my match at https://balloon-juice.com/2024/08/18/new-angel-match-zoom-with-the-civics-center-on-tuesday/.

    I’m fortunate enough and glad to be able to contribute, but she calls the shots here. If we don’t make the match she’ll make me take my money away? Don’t let that happen!

    WaterGirl, this is what happens when you try to get me to comment more. I feel like a QVC anchor selling paste jewelry here.* Not my jam. :)

    * in that I’m lying about not matching, not about the quality of the product.

  81. 81.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Craig: … people couldn’t connect that Reagan was a professional actor and all the shitty policy coming out of the GOP.

    “Ronald Reagan the movie actor?? Who’s Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Benny?”

  82. 82.

    wjca

    @FastEdD:  it was a cop riot. I suspect the police will be better behaved this time

    They may not be happy about it.  But the cops are clear that, even if they turn off their bodycams (against regs), there will inevitably be someone, probably several someones, with cell phone cameras running.  Quite possibly uploading to the cloud in real time, so just smashing the phones won’t destroy the evidence.

    Might even be a drone or two in the air, to give an overview of how things unfold.

  84. 84.

    Jackie

    @eclare:

    Besides being eloquent he also told a funny story about Rosalynn bringing homemade pimento cheese and a loaf of bread on airplane flights.  She made sandwiches and passed them out to everyone.

    LOL! I remember that! He was defining “what and who Rosalynn was” – even while she was the wife of The President. Rosalynn didn’t have a pretentious bone in her body.

  86. 86.

    frosty

    @CaseyL: No matches here. Younger son said he’d heard about it, older son told us to freeze our accounts on Experian. They’re on top of it!!!

  87. 87.

    BlueGuitarist

    Are any of these 1968 discussions addressing how Nixon secretly sabotaged the peace talks to win the election? Considering the parallel between the corrupt South Vietnamese government preventing a peace agreement to benefit the Republican Party in 68  and the corrupt Israeli government preventing a peace agreement now, again to benefit the Republican Party?

  90. 90.

    Soprano2

    @raven: My husband flew from Vietnam to Chicago during that convention in 1968. You can imagine what that was like! I was 7 then, I remember it happened but not details. My parents were Nixon supporters.

  92. 92.

    frosty

    @blackmtn: Same here. 21 to vote against Nixon. But 20 for the California primary where I voted for Shirley Chisholm because McGovern was too conservative!

    I’m proud of that vote too.

  97. 97.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: Sorry.  I can’t let this stand. :)

     

    Dr. Emmett Brown: Then tell me, future boy, who’s President of the United States in 1985?

    Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan.

    Dr. Emmett Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor?

    [chuckles in disbelief]

    Dr. Emmett Brown: Then who’s vice president? Jerry Lewis?

  99. 99.

    karen marie

    @SpaceUnit:  Thank you.  I will try to watch the convention – anyone know if it will be on cspan? – but avoid as much of the “news” coverage I can manage.

    While it often feels like 1968 with all the nostalgia of the GOP to take us back, it’s not, and it really pisses me off that the fucking punditry is excited for this convention to go as badly as the one in ’68.

  104. 104.

    Prometheus Shrugged

    @Kayla Rudbek: Not tacos, but, near the middle of COVID,  this woman (https://www.jibaritoisla.com) parked her food truck on our block during the weekends.  Every Caribbean islander in the county came out for a block party (including many of the Padres players; I met Manny Machado and Jurickson Profar in the queue.)  It was awesome–total antithesis of Trumpism–everyone was just happy.  Unfortunately, she got too popular and opened a sit down restaurant. But for awhile, I was living the taco-truck-on-every-corner dream.

  107. 107.

    HumboldtBlue

    And if you think the campaign making a stop in Aliquippa PA was just a random stop on the way, it wasn’t.

    Aliquippa football has a deep history despite its hardscrabble existence, and the program has sent hundreds of players to college and dozens of players to the NFL, including HOFers Mike Ditka and Ty Law and Darelle Revis.

    Coach Walz speaks, the players take a knee. Great imagery, absolute home run of campaign strategy.

    That scene, with a few dozen young men on a knee listening to their coach resonates, and not just on football fields, but across sports as a whole, and that’s Coach Walz telling those boys he’s there for the boss, and now they are too. Even if they can’t vote yet, they’re with Kamala and Coach.

  108. 108.

    RevRick

    I was 19 in 1968 and had grown up in a politically aware family (my mom was a Wendell Wilkie Republican) and I could remember back-and-forths between her and my FDR Democrat grandfather. I was about to head to college and I was reeling from the assassination that riddled that year. Since I couldn’t vote yet, the most I could do was participate in the teach-ins on campus. Besides the chaos and violence of the demonstrations, the thing that stuck in my mind was the nastiness on the Convention floor with Mayor Daley hurling a vile slur at our Governor Abe Ribicoff.

  109. 109.

    KatKapCC

    I don’t know if there is a way to embed a Threads post, but I liked this one from Andrew Weissmann:

    How is the iPhone like the NYT?

    iPhone: has a zillion functions unrelated to what was initially supposed to be its core competency

    NYT: similar, but the unrelated functions are limited to Wordle/Connections/Spelling Bee/Crossword/Cooking and real estate porn. And they are becoming its core competency.

    Indeed.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    The perimeter allowed for protesters is clear. If they choose to break that perimeter, then don’t be surprised if the CPD  forgets about their new “protester training”.😒😒

  113. 113.

    hotshoe

    @O. Felix Culpa: ​
     

    Looks like he freaked his SS detail out a little bit, running ahead of them.

    Yeah, but what I love about that is: they really care.
    I think his guys know the fate of their nation could be in their hands; if they let someone get to Walz, our effort to hold back R-fascism could be entirely derailed. No one knows what would happen if Harris is suddenly deprived of Walz as running mate (with his benevolent everyone’s-favorite-neighbor personality which balances “cop-Kamala” spicy personality) but no one who cares would be willing to gamble on it. This is where we are as a nation, this is our winning ticket, and it matters.

    I think Trump’s Secret Service guys really don’t care. Videos don’t catch them looking at the crowd as if they are really watching out for potential trouble. They’ve stuck with him so long, they’re probably okay at doing their jobs, but it’s stale and the passion just isn’t there.
    I’m verging a bit on conspiracy theory here, but some of them may even welcome Trump getting taken down. They could be rid of the smelly old man, let some newer and fresher MAGA candidate take his place. I think top Rs would absolutely love a nearly-fatal wound for Trump; the R cult could vote for a bedridden brain-dead Trump and then Vance (and Thiel and Putin pulling strings) could manage the 25th Amendment solution one minute after inauguration — if the R ticket wins.

    I’m not the praying sort; if I could, I would pray for both Tim and Kamala to be warded by guardian angels. In the meantime thank goodness for the security detail who look as if their hearts are in it.

  115. 115.

    Jackie

    LOL!

    Trump often posts Rasmussen Reports polls, which AllSides media bias rating shows as “lean right,” on his Truth Social account, and they usually show the former president with a devastating lead over Vice President Kamala Harris. Earlier this month, critics were surprised by a Rasmussen poll showing Trump with only a five-point lead in a review of the national vote.

    On Sunday, however, a survey released by the MAGA-friendly polling group showed that Trump is struggling in swing states, too. According to the poll, Trump is winning Arizona and Pennsylvania by only one point. The same poll actually showed Harris with a one-point lead in Michigan.

    Online, political onlookers were stunned.

    Conservative Army Iraq War Veteran Peter Henlein said it was the “the worst poll for Trump” he had seen in this cycle.

    “Because it is Rasmussen, which acts more like a MAGA influencer than a professional polling firm,” Henlein said. “And they have him up only 1 in AZ and PA, and down 1 MI. From anyone else this is a whatever poll, but not from Rasmussen.”

    Attorney and cable news legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold said, “Add 5 points to any Democrat.”

    More snark at the link: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-rasmussen-worst-poll-swing-states/

  116. 116.

    mvr

    @mrmoshpotato: Yeah, I was only 10, but that narrative without mentioning the Kennedy assassination leaves out a key element or two and seems to embellish a bit. I also don’t recall any possibility of LBJ jumping back in.  I do recall the Chicago Cops rioting (Assaulted a family friend who was a black reporter – for Newsweek at the time IIRC), Mayor Daley putting a heavy hand on the scale with their help (one reason I never like any Pol with that name in Chicago) and the Chicago Seven trial that followed. (Much later came to know someone whose family put up one of the defendants during the trial.)  I was a kid so perhaps it isn’t evidence that LBJ wasn’t likely to jump back in, but I don’t really think so.

  117. 117.

    divF

    @BR: The photo of Kamala, Doug, and Gwen perusing the chips aisle, with Tim taking a slightly blurry candid cell phone photo, looks so normal, right down to the casual clothes*. They look like (and are, really) a pair of middle-aged couples out on a road trip.

    *The clothes have some class markers, e.g. no obvious polyester.

  118. 118.

    frosty

    @hotshoe: I’m verging a bit on conspiracy theory here, but some of them may even welcome Trump getting taken down.

    No, not a chance. It would end their careers.

  119. 119.

    divF

    @JoyceH: A was 16 years old in 1968, but the week of the DNC I was with a group of friends on hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail. When I got back the following weekend, I had the impression that something chaotic had occurred, but was quite vague on the details.

  120. 120.

    Darkrose

    @CaseyL: Thanks for the tip! I’ve put in freezes. I have Experian monitoring through work, and they haven’t sent me a notification, but better to be safe.

  121. 121.

    wjca

    @HumboldtBlue: That scene, with a few dozen young men on a knee listening to their coach resonates, and not just on football fields, but across sports as a whole, and that’s Coach Walz telling those boys he’s there for the boss, and now they are too. Even if they can’t vote yet, they’re with Kamala and Coach.

    Even if they cannot yet vote, their parents (and probably their extended families) assuredly can.  And he just connected with them all on a level that neither Trump nor Vance can match.

  122. 122.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The utter scum of the Village need SOMETHING negative to talk about, so it’s “just look what happened in 1968”. No one on the payroll of the WaPo was a working “journalist” in 1968, so STFU you assholes.
    Also, in the “The Stupid, it BURNS!” department tonight, Kayleigh McEnany whines “Safe, legal, and rare (abortions) was the Democratic mantra in 2008. What happened to that?”
    If someone is near Mauritius, would you please look for my eyes, because they’ve rolled to there.

  124. 124.

    divF

    @KatKapCC: I didn’t encounter that album until I started college in 1969. At that point, it became one of my absolute favorites. In addition, we identified it as a quintessential drinking album. The last song – “Slim Slow Silder” – is perfect music for passing out to.

  125. 125.

    wjca

    @hotshoe: the R cult could vote for a bedridden brain-dead Trump and then Vance (and Thiel and Putin pulling strings) could manage the 25th Amendment solution one minute after inauguration

    I believe the President has to actually take the Oath of Office in order to be inaugurated.  Which being brain dead would preclude.

    Not sure how the Constitution handles death of an elected, but not yet inaugurated, President.

  128. 128.

    Jackie

    Will the “Normies recognize this is BS?

    Washington Post: “More than $247 million was spent in the first six months of this year on television, streaming platform and digital ads that mention immigration, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign advertising. That is $40 million more than ads that mention any other issue.
    Over 90 percent of the ads supported Republican candidates and were paid for by their campaigns or political action committees backing them.”

    “The level of spending underscores how important Republicans view border security and immigration in this year’s elections. While polls show voters overall rank issues at the border as less important to them than the economy, inflation and protecting democracy, Republican voters consistently rank it as among the most important…”

    “Taken as a whole, the ads convey an unrealistic portrait of the border as being overrun and inaccurately characterize immigrants generally as a threat, of which there is little evidence. FBI data show U.S. border cities are among the nation’s safest. And a 2023 report from a group of economists found immigrants are at least 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born individuals.”

  129. 129.

    Jackie

    Barbara Comstock is on board!

    Former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) said she will vote for Kamala Harris for president on Sunday, marking the latest former GOP member to break from the party’s support of Donald Trump, The Hill reports.

    We need Another One Bites the Dust post!

  130. 130.

    KatKapCC

    @divF: It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? I will say overall I’m more partial to Moondance, but Astral Weeks has some lovely tunes.

  135. 135.

    cain

    @BlueGuitarist: There seems to be a theme of Nixonites fucking over negotiations to get elected. Reagan learned from Nixon and brought the Nixon team over with him.

  138. 138.

    prostratedragon

    @CaseyL:  Oh, yeah. Thanks for this. I just had to replace my card for the second time in two years. Freeze applied, and article shared among the family.

  145. 145.

    Matt McIrvin

    @wjca: The new Presidential term begins the moment the previous one ends– the oath of office is not actually required for the President-elect to become President, though the law specifies it has to happen at some point.

  147. 147.

    divF

    @Ruckus: I immediately benefitted from that change. I voted in the 1972 at the age of 20. McGovern for President, Ron Dellums for HoR.

  148. 148.

    lowtechcyclist

    @jlowe: ​
     

    Wow. “. . . the spirit of ’68 is a painful memory.” Pretty desperate there, WaPo, trying to make this bit of distant history a part of the current narrative.

    Indeed! And a painful memory for whom?? Most Americans living today have no memories of 1968, painful or otherwise, because they weren’t even born yet.

  149. 149.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    And as a Gen Xer, I’m tired of the national media being stuck in the 1960s-1980s narrative.

    Amen. When that convention happened, I hadn’t been born yet.~

  150. 150.

    JML

    My dad was a delegate to the DNC in ’68. He joked that he was “inside, where it was safe”. (questionable, in fact). But Dad’s been gone for 25 years now. That convention was 56 years ago!

    The only reasons for the comp are the city being the same, but also because the media is desperately hoping for a violent clash and huge numbers of protesters so they can get their star turns and run all the “Democrats in Disarray” stories they have stored up. They seem to truly hate having a united Democratic Party and the fact that TFG is losing to Harris.

  153. 153.

    Barry

    @Kayla Rudbek: “And as a Gen Xer, I’m tired of the national media being stuck in the 1960s-1980s narrative.”

     

    And has been pointed out, even senior management doesn’t remember that.  It’s a bunch of 55-year olds playing their parents’ music.

  154. 154.

    cmorenc

    Among the reasons 1968 is painful is the likelihood that RFK could have beaten Nixon had he not been assassinated, even with Wallace taking several of the deepest-south states out of the usual reliable D block of electoral votes.  Humphrey was policy-wise a solid progressive, but lacked the sort of telegenic charisma RFK had (or for that matter, seems to be a big advantage for Harris in 2024 , 56 years later.

    The eventual inevitable end to the Vietnam war would have been difficult for whichever administration of either party, and the economic forces that resulted in stagflation might have proved difficult had Ds had the presidency 1968-76, but nonetheless I wish we could have tried that alternate patj of history to Nixon and Ford. As it happened, we got Jimmy Carter in 1976, a classic case of the right man for the wrong time, in contrast to 1980 where Reagan was the wrong man at the right time.

  155. 155.

    Angua

    I was 24 and sat in my car listening to the radio narration of carnage on the streets and weeping for shame for my country. Sadly not the last time I’ve wept for my country.

  156. 156.

    Pittsburgh Mike

    Please.  This is not 1968 redux.  Johnson was driven from office not because he was incapable of campaigning but because of the Vietnam war.  The anti-war protests were significant and supported by large numbers of people.  There was a great deal of dispute about who the candidate should be.

    None of this is true today.  Biden had to be pushed to drop out, but not because of bad policies, and KH will likely continue the most important of them.  The US isn’t at war anywhere, much less drafting people to fight it.  We know who’s on the ticket.

    These 1968 columns are just filler for people with a deadline.

Comments are closed.