The Democratic National Convention will take place in Chicago next week. The DNC will return to Chicago for the first time since 1968. The number of similarities with that period are striking.
First, of course, there was a Democratic president in the White House at that time as well, Lyndon B. Johnson. Second, that president had decided not to run for a second term, the same as Biden today. In that case, Johnson initially had sought to run for re-election; however, following disappointing results in the New Hampshire primary he withdrew his candidacy. Third, the Democratic party was divided in the support for the war that its president had intensified: in that case, the “surge” in Vietnam, these days the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Fourth, just like today, universities were in revolt against those wars. The Chicago police had a very hard time containing the protests, and had to resort to violent methods, which further antagonised Democratic opinion. Fifth, the country as a whole was highly divided at the time, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 in Dallas. Sixth, the Republican party was featuring the return of a highly divisive figure as its frontrunner, in that case Richard Nixon, who had lost the presidential race in 1960 against the young Kennedy, after Kennedy had been better at using the new medium of the day, namely television. (The famous first-ever US presidential debate, between Nixon and Kennedy, was held – again – in Chicago, on September 26th, 1960).
Needless to say, the Democrats hope that the result of this year’s election will be different from that of 1968, when Nixon defeated the Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. And hopefully everybody hopes that, unlike in 1968, when the leading Democratic candidate Robert Kennedy was killed by Sirhan Sirhan, a supporter of the Palestinian cause, there will not be any further act of political violence in this campaign, after the attempted assassination of Trump in early July.
As we discussed in previous columns, this has already been one of the most surprising campaigns in American presidential races. This includes the fact that, for the first time in history, a women of color is running for the highest office in the US. But the tension between the two sides of the political spectrum is as high as ever, as proven by the recent interview by Elon Musk with Donald Trump, held on Twitter/X (to which Trump was re-admitted by Musk himself in November 2022, after the tech entrepreneur bought the platform in 2022). Musk said he has committed USD 45m a month to support Trump’s campaign. Musk’s co-investor in Paypal, Peter Thiel, has sponsored the political ascent of JD Vance, Trump’s running mate.
Our hope is that, after the DNC, this heated campaign will return to more normal standards, with candidates speaking about their economic programs and their view for the US in the world. But, as we discussed many times before, our fear is that the stakes are too high, and this will remain a heated campaign until November 5th. But the recent riots in the UK should serve as a warning signal of what may occur in the US, if tensions do not abate before that day.
