(Chicago) After a month of depression, Democrats are not only in good spirits, they are exultant.
Let us recall that 99% of the delegates here are “committed” to Joe Biden. This is the last group of Americans who believed in the chances of the outgoing president, despite his age, despite the criticism. They sincerely admire him.
That’s to say they had a bad month of July…
PHOTO VINCENT ALBAN, REUTERS
The Democratic convention begins this Monday in Chicago.
“We were at a brewery in Oklahoma City, watching the debate. [le 27 juin]… It hit me hard,” Loretta Autry tells me. At “over 70,” she got involved in politics after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In Oklahoma, every Democrat thinks he’s the only one in his district, but we’re just being discreet.
Loretta Autry
When she realized it wasn’t just “a bad night” for Biden, she became “nervous.” She was getting involved in politics for the first time in her life to prevent Donald Trump from coming back to power, and everywhere she heard those who “won’t vote for Trump, but can’t vote for Biden.”
Biden announced his departure on July 21 at 1:30 p.m. The next day, in an initial consultation, delegates approved Kamala Harris’ candidacy almost unanimously.
PHOTO KEVIN LAMARQUE, REUTERS
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, met with volunteers in Rochester, Pennsylvania, on Sunday.
It is difficult to overstate the relief and partisan exuberance that followed.
The senior New York State Representative in Congress, Jerrold Nadler, whom we met Sunday, is a good example: “Harris has a two-point lead nationally; a convention gives you a two- or three-point boost, which is four or five points. And then you have the debate on September 10. Trump is inconsistent, he’s talking nonsense. He says Biden wants to change the name of Pennsylvania, things like that. So she’s going to win the debate, which will give her another three or four points… She’s going to win easily, she’s going to bring us the House of Representatives and we’re going to keep the Senate.”
The whole lot!
The less popular topic is the pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the convention. 50,000 people are expected, some say 70,000, others 100,000.
PHOTO ALEX BRANDON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Police officers confront pro-Palestinian protesters in Chicago on Sunday.
The Biden administration, already criticized by a fringe of its party, announced last week arms sales of more than $20 billion to Israel, with deliveries expected to begin in two years. The $3.5 billion in military aid was also renewed, although this summer some arms deliveries were slowed.
Moreover, of the approximately 5,000 delegates at the convention, 36 are “noncommitted” to Biden, and plan to pressure Harris to obtain commitments on the Palestinian issue. Already, a workshop has been announced, involving a surgeon who practiced in Gaza and relatives of Palestinian civilian victims.
For the Democratic Party, a convention and protests in Chicago are reminiscent of the chaos of 1968.
“If anything can go wrong this week, it’s this. But it won’t,” believes the Congressman Nadler himself was booed by pro-Israel protesters at a New York demonstration in April for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. He had stressed the need for the United States to also promote humanitarian aid for the Palestinians.
PHOTO YVES BOISVERT, THE PRESS
New York State Representative Jerrold Nadler
It was a small group, and it’s also a small group that disagrees with Harris, and I wonder what they want. Harris has spoken out for the ceasefire and she has acknowledged the plight of the Palestinians better than Biden has.
New York State Representative Jerrold Nadler
In any case, “the comparison with 1968 does not hold up,” he said.
First, the United States is not at war. At the 1968 convention, delegates were personally affected by the issue, and were at risk of going into combat—more than 50,000 Americans died in Vietnam.
PHOTO ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Guardsmen line up on the street facing protesters in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention
Until 1971, when the 26the amendment was passed, the legal voting age in the United States was 21. But you could be “drawn” to fight in Vietnam as young as 18.
Second, Nadler said, the Chicago police force is not the same anymore. “The mayor [Richard Daley] had staged the riots by attacking the protesters. She doesn’t act like that anymore.”
It is hard to imagine the dark social climate in 1968. Martin Luther King had been assassinated on April 4. Riots followed in several major cities, the most serious in Chicago. The police, the National Guard and then the army were deployed. Eleven demonstrators died.
PHOTO ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Police officers escort a man out of Grant Park during protests that disrupted the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.
College campuses were mobilized by anti-war demonstrations.
“I was one of the organizers of Dump Johnson [jetez le président Lyndon B. Johnson]said Nadler, who was 20 at the time. Vietnam was the No. 1 issue. Since 1844, no incumbent president had been prevented from running by his own party. It was unheard of, a president is guaranteed the nomination of his party. But in March 1968, Eugene McCarthy won 42 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary against Johnson. We proved it could be done. The next day on the bus to New York at 6 a.m., we learned that Bobby Kennedy was reconsidering his decision and wanted to run too. People were furious on the bus, but I wasn’t, so much the better if there are two antiwar candidates. If he hadn’t been assassinated [le soir de sa victoire à la primaire de Californie]I think he would have won.”
Johnson, facing a deeply divided party, did not wait for the Chicago convention. On March 31, 1968, he did as Joe Biden did in July of this year. He gave up running again.
But apart from these feelings of déjà vu, Chicago 1968 has little in common with Chicago 2024.