Though Doc Brown, Marty McFly and that wonderful DeLorean are not readily available to take us back to Chicago again, there are more than a few similarities between our nation, the Windy City today and that bloody DNC Convention of 1968. Admittedly, President Bill Clinton also returned to Chicago for his second DNC gathering in the summer of 1996, before steam-rolling the campaign of GOP standard bearer and longtime U.S. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. However that 90's swing along the Great Lakes was much more benign.
In 1968, an aging and increasingly unpopular President in declining health (Lyndon Baines Johnson) decided he would not seek re-election. His significantly more progressive VP from Minnesota would become the party nominee (Hubert Humphrey), in a less than smooth manner and that contest would not command the attention of viewers and voters during a very controversial week in the City of Big Shoulders.
At that time as well, our nation was deeply divided, then over the Vietnam War, as well as implementation of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act. An insurgent third party candidate, Alabama Governor George Wallace, would break away from the Democratic Party, and later win more than a handful of southern states in the fall.
The divide today may be more varied in substance, but the chasm is just as stark. Johnson's approval ratings were dropping largely due to the continuing Vietnam War, as Biden's have been similarly impacted by conflicts in Ukraine and Israel and Gaza as well as intractable inflation. The assassinations of Civil Rights giant, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April, and then Democratic front runner, Robert Kennedy in June, fomented fear and tensions, not unlike the more recent assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump.
Johnson did not attend the DNC in 1968, while maintaining strong control of the floor and bunkered away down in Texas. Biden is viewed as much more fragile and much less in charge, and will speak to the DNC this time on its opening night.
Younger voters are critical to the Democrats in both elections. Clashes between young protesters and the Chicago P.D. were frequent and at times violent during that hot summer in Chicago, and titanic Mayor, Richard Daley, labeled the protesters as Hippies and Yippies...labels which stung and stuck, and even though 18 years old was then enough to go to war, it was not yet the universal voting age, contributing to Democrats losing that critical youth voting block in that contest.
Only ONE Vice-President, while serving as Vice-President since the days of Harry Truman, has won election to the White House. VP Hubert Humphrey lost the contest in a landslide to former VP Richard Nixon, now 'tanned, rested and ready' from a stint back home in California, following his own brutal loss as Eisenhower’s VP to a young Senator, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
While Nixon has his own flaws, he was generally more of a globalist, and forward looking. The GOP’s current nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, pitches a more backwards view and a return to American greatness, more than implying that otherwise does not exist today.
While the GOP held a unifying convention in Milwaukee, it did not yet clinch the votes in Wisconsin, one of the critical seven battleground states in this cycle. Illinois is a safely Democratic bastion, part of the DNC’s Blue Wall, yet one has to wonder with Atlanta being the host city second choice if that might have been a better strategic path, as both campaigns seem to agree that their road to victory includes a win in Georgia.
Similarities of course do not make for identical outcomes...yet perhaps offer some cautionary advice and guidance. Young college-aged voters and protesters are expected outside of the United Center where the DNC main events and prime-time programming will take place, as well as the larger McCormick Convention Center. One might hope that they will be met by a 'kinder/gentler' version of Chicago P.D. LBJ rejected Humphrey's plea for a peace plank in the DNC platform. Biden is not calling these shots, but Democrats still must walk a fine line between European and Middle Eastern allies and younger voters and nationalists who desire to see peace treaties and less focus on foreign affairs of all kinds.
Lake Michigan is incredibly beautiful and few cities have as many incredible dining and food choices as Chicago. Here is to Chicago and the DNC getting their fill of good times and civil debate, versus ill winds and blood again in the streets during this trip back to America's Windy City.
