Chicago and the Democrats in 2024 — and 1968

As the Democratic Party’s national convention ran its course in Chicago this week, you could bet the house that over at Camp Trump they were hoping desperately for a repeat of 1968.

The lasting memory of that particular convention is the scene of cops with truncheons and teargas laying into anti-Vietnam War protesters. The police’s grim efficiency surpassed even that of our own riot cops, circa 1988 at Wits University.

Some groups were certainly stoking the fire long before the convention started, with Youth International Party — or Yippie — leaders claiming that “hot hippie chicks” would infiltrate the convention to seduce male delegates and ply them with LSD, which was bound to get everybody’s attention.

Meanwhile, the cops were already amped after mayor Richard Daley’s earlier injunction to “kill arsonists” and “maim looters” during protests after Martin Luther King’s assassination.

About 10,000 protesters rocked up in Chicago. After four days of rioting, baton charges, teargas, burning flags and chants of “the world is watching”, 668 of them were in jail.

Compared with the earlier Republican convention in Miami, Chicago looked like a war zone ... and probably cost Hubert Humphrey the election. After Chicago Richard Nixon, of all people, looked like a safe pair of hands for the US.

There’s little doubt that November’s election marks a turning point for the US, whichever way it goes. Which is why all eyes, left and right, are on Chicago this week.

“Biden says he gave ‘heart and soul to our nation’ as he passes torch,” says The Guardian.

“DNC host Chicago, haunted by 1968 convention rioting, braces for bloodshed,” says Fox News.

So far some protesters have been removed from the convention halls. There are also scenes of cops herding demonstrators between crowd barriers. Most seemed more concerned with getting good video on their phones than protesting.

So nothing like 1968 at all.