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Harris is not risky, the demonstrations are

Tonight’s opening of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago will rightfully bring back memories of the 1968 convention. Then a police riot against anti-Vietnam war demonstrators contributed to wrecking Hubert Humphrey’s prospects for defeating Richard Nixon. Humphrey came within a whisker (42.7% to Nixon’s 43.4%) of winning the popular vote but lost definitively in the Electoral College (191 to 302). The rest of the votes went to segregationist George Wallace. He in 1963 had pronounced in his inaugural address as Alabama Governor:

Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!

It was a scary time

I was a physical chemistry master’s student at the University of Chicago in 1968. It was a traumatic year. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, both favorites among many Democrats, had led to rioting and persistent racial tension. The atmosphere in the South Shore neighborhood in which I lived with my Black fiancée was tense even before the assassinations.

It was much worse after them. A Catholic priest was making his name that spring with the slogan “hold the line at Ashland.” That meant not allowing Blacks to buy houses west of Ashland Avenue. A Christian Orthodox congregation (I don’t remember of which variety) stoned its priest when he showed up one Sunday because he had adopted the Gregorian calendar, presumably on instructions from his church hierarchy. Racial and ethnic passions of all varieties were intense.

By the time of the Democratic Convention in August, we had moved to a much nicer apartment in Hyde Park to housesit. That relatively upscale neighborhood was also tense. As a mixed couple, we attracted a lot of nasty remarks, from Blacks as well as whites. When I was alone, whites would readily indulge in racist commentary.

The Convention made it worse

Richard Daley had been Chicago’s mayor since 1955. He ran the city as a corrupt, largely segregated fiefdom. Abusive use of the police in the aftermath of the assassinations had contributed substantially to the disorder. He was determined to use the police in the same fashion during the Convention.

I went up to Grant Park the afternoon before the Convention opened. The governor had called out the National Guard, which had set up machine guns on the bridges across Lake Shore Drive. The speeches at the demonstration were emotional and all but called for violence. The heavily equipped police, some on horseback, were looking stressed. It took no genius to conclude that the city was about to explode.

I returned to our apartment and suggested we drive east the next day. I was happy to leave racist Chicago in the rear view mirror. The riot started that evening.

It’s different but still risky

I trust Chicago 2024 has overcome much of the racial and ethnic animus of 56 years earlier. It today has a Black mayor whose sympathies on Gaza are with the demonstrators. The demonstrators are protesting Israeli conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza as well as failure of the Biden Administration to withhold military assistance to Israel. Those issues have split the Democrats–there will be lots of delegates inside the Convention who sympathize with the demonstrators outside, as there were also in 1968.

The key issue will be how well prepared the police are and how skillfully they handle the situation. There will be demonstrators determined to challenge them and try to disrupt the Convention. Preventing a small number from mobilizing the mass of demonstrators to violence will be essential. That said, the city seems determined to protect the right to protest. And the Convention will no doubt hear expressions of support for the causes the demonstrators espouse. All that is good.

Many of the demonstrators will be unsatisfied with Harris’ assertion of sympathy with Palestinian civilians. They need to keep in mind the real alternative. Donald Trump would be much more supportive of Israel than Biden has been. Violence in Chicago in the next few days could throw the election to a Republican who wouldn’t even consider restraining Israel.

If all goes well, Kamala Harris will get the opportunity to extend her remarkable performance of the past few weeks. She is now leading in the national polls and competitive in virtually all the battleground states. The election outcome is of course still in doubt, but the Biden age handicap is gone. Harris is a solid candidate who will do her best to bring the Gaza war to an end. The risk lies not with her but with the demonstrators and their behavior in Chicago this week.