‘Make it great like ’68’: Threat of violence looms over Democratic National Convention

CHICAGO — Protests are already underway as the Democratic National Convention begins today, with most of the energy coming from grievances over the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s sustained assault on Gaza.

Left-wing protesters promoting an array of causes marched up Chicago’s Michigan Avenue on Sunday and massed outside hotels where delegates are staying. Pro-Palestine protesters disrupted a convention delegate welcome party at Navy Pier.

Much bigger demonstrations are likely today.

Protest leaders expect 30,000 to 40,000 people to show up for the marches against the Democratic National Convention starting this afternoon and concluding on Thursday when Vice President Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic presidential nomination. Security in Chicago is significant in anticipation of violence.

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The Coalition to March on the DNC, the umbrella for the left-wing groups, insists that ending Israel’s siege of Gaza will be accomplished by — as a protest spokesperson put it to Raw Story — “building a mass movement outside of Washington” rather than working within the two-party system. More than 40,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza to date, according to Associated Press, and the Israeli bombardment continues to take civilian lives, including 11 children recently.

Other demonstrators are even more confrontational: A group called Behind Enemy Lines calls the Democratic gathering a “genocide convention” and is promoting a protest on Tuesday under the headline of “Make it great like ’68.”

The protesters’ unreserved embrace of the 1968 convention protest precedent, when unrest in the streets marred the Democratic convention in Chicago that year, casts an ominous cloud over the week ahead.

The 1968 convention was a disaster not only for the Democratic Party, which went on to lose that year’s election to Republican Richard Nixon, but also for the anti-war protesters, who would witness a dramatic expansion of the Vietnam war under Nixon’s administration, as one veteran of the 1968 protest has acknowledged.

Now in 2024, Democratic Party delegates representing voters who voted “uncommitted” during Democratic primaries in protest of President Joe Biden’s policies on the war in Gaza, are working inside the party to press Harris to support an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo against Israel.

Layla Elabed, founder of the Uncommitted movement; Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who has a coveted speaker slot at the convention; and Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a physician who has worked at a hospital in Gaza during the war, are among the panelists Monday afternoon at a side event taking place at McCormick Place in Chicago — an official Democratic National Committee venue — to to highlight Palestinian human rights.

Pro-Israel groups are similarly organizing programming to humanize the Jewish victims — about 1,200 people in Israel were killed during Hamas’ attacks on Israeli soil — of the war.

The Israeli American Council, for one, will host a “Hostage Square” — reminiscent of a similar gathering in Tel Aviv, Israel — at a not-yet-disclosed location Tuesday near the United Center.

The presence of right-wing provocateurs intent on playing up chaos by amplifying division around the convention is also a concern, although it remains unclear whether they — or any pro-Donald Trump protesters — will have a significant presence outside the Democratic National Convention.

Regardless, the right-wing backlash against pro-Palestine college campus encampments earlier this year gives cause for concern.

Among the provocations: Zionist extremists attacked an encampment at UCLA in late April, white fraternity brothers hurled racist abuse at a Black woman protesting at the University of Mississippi, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McGinnis showed up at a protest at Columbia University.

The sprawling convention in Chicago — split between two hardened security zones surrounding separate sites at the United Center and McCormick Place, along with hotels where delegates are staying scattered around the downtown Loop — provides numerous touch points for opposing groups of protesters and delegates.

In short, it’s a setup with ample opportunity for provocateurs intent on heightening tension to find targets for adversarial engagement. Still, it’s unclear whether right-wing extremists will mobilize in sufficient numbers to make an impact beyond the gadfly presence standard for political conventions.

A massive security apparatus is assembled in Chicago to grapple with potential threats and unrest.

One of the few far-right groups that has announced plans to be at the Democratic convention this week is New Frontier, a fascist group that is marginal even by the standards of the fractious white nationalist movement.

Andre Williams, the group’s co-leader, showed up at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with a pistol strapped to his hip and heckled abortion rights activists.

Other far-right figures have talked about showing up at the convention, but they appear to be geared more toward performing media stunts or other low-stakes mischief than counter-protesting or propagating violence.

James O’Keefe, the ousted president of Project Veritas Action, publicly solicited applicants to do “undercover work at the DNC” in a likely effort to generate material for the purpose of embarrassing delegates and party officials.

In a more transparent media stunt, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a prominent election denier and conspiracy theorist, said he plans to show up “incognito” at the convention with Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who faces multiple criminal charges related to his efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election.