WAS: What Adults are Saying about Dems' return to Chicago
The parallels between ''68 and today are many. What might it mean?
Some 10 years on from one of America’s most tumultuous years, ABC produced the news special 1968: A Crack in Time. It neatly summarized a crazy year marked by dual assassinations, an 11th hour campaign withdrawal, raging anti-war sentiment, student protests, concern for returning astronauts as man first circumnavigated the Moon and protests in Chicago’s Grant Park adjacent to a political convention that looked like a cross between the French Revolution and Game of Thrones. It looked a lot like today.
This week Democrats will return to that same locale under the growing joy of a political rebirth while bringing enough parallels to keep the ‘68 ghosts alive. No one named Daley will be bellicose about “domestic terrorists” outside his Hilton and delegates will not explode in rage about the growing catastrophe in Vietnam, but enough parallels exist to consider cosmic karma might be circling at O’ Hare.
The utterly remarkable (and potentially Shakespearean drama behind) Democratic power transfer of the last month will fill history books for generations. A party wed to chaos simply flipped the script on its opposition with no more than three weeks notice amid a deep foreboding that our 45th President might soon return to be our 47th. At the speed of political light the ear-wounded hunter became the hunted and the perpetually disorganized—with cannon shot force—became adept. Its nearly impossible to describe how opposite this is to the historical norm.
These odd words should be lost on no one. The Dems have gone from flirting with the Mendoza Line to Ernie Banks as Vice-President Harris provides a triple blitzkrieg of hope, fund raising and contemporary political style. To this moment at least, fortunes for the Donkeys are up and up big. History suggests, however, that sleeping with a capital “D” means tripping over the night lamp is always a concern. Remember this is the party which invented snapping political defeat from the jaws of victory and then compounding it with frantic worrying it was “blowing it.”
This week at Chicago nothing more greatly invite a return to this macabre thinking than the expected protests from pro-Gaza sympathizers. Believing that the US enables a bloodthirsty Netanyahu (we do and he is), sizable numbers of Arab-Americans, pro-Gaza sympathizers, progressives and others will descend on Chi Town. Though they may not repeat history in all its violence and tear gas, they will aim to have it rhyme and make sure a toasty, existential “fire” is never far from the excess and propaganda that is any political convention.
They may also have some unlikely allies. Surely GOP operatives are aiming to gum things up both on the ground and in digital space. That’s a trick foreign undesirables might deploy too. Though he was tardy, feckless and obtuse (while getting knee-capped by then Attorney General Bill Barr), Bob Mueller reported that in 2016 such shenanigans were bountifully evident and facilitated by the Trump campaign. Today’s international battle lines are far more stark now than then and, Putin (for one), remains a wounded animal with a large stake on who wins in November. He sitting on the sidelines seems unlikely. So there’s that.
Then there is the town itself. Much like Kennedy and Dallas, Chicago and Democrats have always been linked to one another in a dark way. Though city hall and its surrounding Cook County have long been the textbook example of a Democratic political machine, the fallout from ‘68 was the darkest of civic stains that was really never reconciled. Sometimes history like that is difficult to confront for no reason other than it was hard, or tragic, or perhaps revealed some collective self-ugliness best left forgotten. So, there is that too.
Assuming nothing that severe is in the offing this week, Harris will leave Chicago as a leader in the ‘24 horse race. If the vote were held today America would elect its first woman President and potentially by a greater margin than 2020. Add that on paper, Trump’s campaign mojo is so dull right now as to be inviting a rout. But the election isn’t today nor is it to be won on paper (it’s won by little talking heads in our TV’s and devices telling us how to vote)! This is the best news for which Trump can hope approaching Labor Day and remembering his improbable 2016 victory was won with a late stretch run. He’ll also know that if “history” this week doesn’t torch Harris, there’s always the chance she’ll repeat that long Democratic tradition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.