Lesson of ’68: Been There, Done That and Lost

Dems, beware reliving the nightmare. There are those who’ve updated their playbook on how to TOTV* instead of GOTV with a rerun of 1968.

Attribution: Campaign 2024 by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT

*turn off the vote

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42 thoughts on “Lesson of ’68: Been There, Done That and Lost”

  1. How the Israel-Gaza Protests Could Hurt the Democratic Party – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

    It’s a nightmare scenario for Democrats: Protesters disrupt their convention this summer; they clash with the police; chaos seems to take hold.
    It may not be imaginary. As protests over Israel’s war in Gaza continue to intensify, especially on college campuses, activists are preparing to be in Chicago this summer for the Democratic National Convention.
    The very idea sends some Democrats right back to 1968, when their convention, also in Chicago, was overshadowed by infighting and violence between the police and antiwar protesters. Back then, many voters watching the nightly news got the impression that the party could not control its own delegates, never mind a country that was wrestling with an unpopular war.
    Protests over the Israel-Hamas war could also complicate this year’s convention and the Democratic messaging for President Biden, whom Republicans have eagerly cast as too indulgent of chaos and disorder in American society. Last week, Fox News and other conservative outlets repeatedly showed demonstrations that made the country seem on the edge: Columbia University sending in the police to arrest students on campus; protesters shouting “genocide!” at President Biden at a campaign stop; demonstrators chaining themselves to cars to block traffic, creating gridlock.
    “The whole Republican message is, ‘The world is out of control and Biden is not in command,’” said David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist and adviser to former President Barack Obama. “They will exploit any images of disorder to abet and support it.”
    Certainly, there are differences between now and 1968, starting with how conventions are run. They are much more tightly programmed, with fewer, if any, floor fights.
    And the United States has a long, vibrant history of embracing raucous political protest, toward idealistic ends.
    But the 1968 convention stamped Democrats with a legacy that is hard to shake.
    […]
    Outside of the 1968 Democratic National Convention hall, protesters mocked the proceedings. Some threw red paint to simulate blood; others occupied major thoroughfares to shut down traffic. The Yippies nominated a pig for president.
    When demonstrators set up camp at a local park, the police were called in. The ensuing violence shook the country and ultimately helped Richard M. Nixon win election.
    What Americans took away from those scenes of the police and protesters fighting in the streets was not that civil disobedience was a healthy part of American democracy — but that they’d had enough, said Timothy Naftali, who teaches public policy at Columbia University.
    “It’s debatable whether they achieved anything other than ensuring Richard Nixon was re-elected,” Mr. Naftali said.
    The nightmare scenario for Democrats is a chaotic scene that resembles the 1968 convention.
    “We’ve got a big antiwar movement, lots of tumult, a convention in Chicago. What could go wrong?” asked Mr. Axelrod, only half-jokingly.
    For months, protesters have interrupted campaign events for Mr. Biden and other Democrats. They have glued their hands to a wall and disrupted speeches, including one at a high-profile fund-raiser for the president at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan last month. At one point during that event, Mr. Obama challenged one heckler, admonishing, “You can’t just talk and not listen.” He received a hearty round of applause.
    Donald J. Trump has never shied away from portraying his political adversaries as too coddling of unruly demonstrators. During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Trump tried to cast himself in the tradition of Republicans like Nixon, who championed themselves as the guardians of law and order. Mr. Trump even declared himself, “your president of law and order.”
    He was borrowing a page from the playbook of former President Ronald Reagan, who as governor of California ordered the National Guard in 1969 to disperse student demonstrators at the University of California, Berkeley. That event, which became known as “Bloody Thursday,” led to more than 1,000 arrests as some 2,000 guardsmen moved in. And Reagan’s political stock rose.
    What worked for Reagan may not for Republicans today, if only because of Mr. Trump’s support for the rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
    “That really muddles what Republicans were known for,” Mr. Naftali said.

  2. A black and white photo of man confronting several National Guardsmen with guns.

    Demonstrators faced off against National Guardsmen outside of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.Credit…Barton Silverman/The New York Times

    Two uniformed police officers try to intervene between two people. A group of protesters are in the background, holding up signs.

    Protesters and police outside of the Columbia University campus on Friday.Credit…Adam Gray for The New York Times

  3. revisiting the past more on the lighter side with john

    Apr 25, 2024

    John Oliver explains why we need honest inquiry into UFO sightings, and why those inquiries should be data-driven, fact-based, and – crucially – boring as fuck.

  4. Trump portrayed himself as a law and order Republican like Nixon?  Did I read that correctly?  Talk about lack of insight into history. Run out of office by his own party and pardoned to save his ass from criminal charges. You go, girl. 

  5. yesterday Donald Trump meets with construction workers before ‘hush money’ trial in Manhattan (nypost.com)

    Union workers cheer Trump’s return to NYC after he stopped at construction site:  ‘They say unions aren’t big for Trump — well they are’

    but day before yesterday this happened:

    North America’s Building Trades Unions is endorsing President Biden for 2024, and the union is out with a new ad slamming former President Trump. NABTU President Sean McGarvey joins Morning Joe to discuss.

     

    coincidence?

  11. Netanyahu wants another tRUMPsky presidency. Folks know it will be worse for most folks here if he were to be re-elected.  Militarized police running rough shod over everyone but wealthy, well-connected white folks will be the norm.  

    President Biden does need to put some very public restrictions on Israel, if that is the threat of sanctions of some sort. The rest of the world thinks we are nuts.

    The evangelicals seem to be running the show, but not every Christian is the product of a church with a fascist bent, and a rapture-centric theology baked in the 1800s.  They want a second coming of Christ and are delulu in thinking they can trigger it, and all of the liberals will be “left behind” to suffer the tribulation. It’s all nonsense and scary tales, of course.

    Notice that these protests weren’t happening until Netanyahu decided to destroy everything and everyone in Gaza under the pretense that Hamas was hiding under every woman’s skirt, in every child’s school.

    This is not antisemitism, it’s railing against the inhumanity of bombing and starving out folks. The lack of empathy is astounding.

    Bernie Sanders has made a very strong statement about this, and Pelosi has called for Netanyahu to resign. It’s going to take more than surrogates to get the message out that the US does not support these atrocities. President Biden needs to broker a ceasefire and a two-state deal. Easy-peasy, right?

    ps – Why has the MSM stopped covering Israel-Gaza? They are only covering protests. One could could not happen without the other, but it’s more disturbing to see bombed out cities and homeless, starving folks.

    pps – Can the federal government at least say something publicly about the out of control, militarized police who are manhandling protesters?

  12. Pogo — woke up thinking Smith could pare down his indictment to just the private non-immune acts that Trump’s own lawyer surprisingly conceded yesterday and move on to trial?

  13. https://twitter.com/tparsi/status/1783658662231195728

    “Emory’s Caroline Fohlin is knocked down by the police while shouting: “I’m a professor!!” Hear the disbelief in her voice. She never expected to be treated like this by her own university for protesting Israel’s slaughter.”

    The fascism is real, folks! It’s here. It’s on college campuses. If they’ll treat a middle-aged, white woman like this, how do you think everyone else will fare?

  14. Poobah, yeah, that thought is definitely out there. Pare it down to whatever fits the “no immunity” category under whatever cockamamie framework SCOTUS comes up with and let it fly. Short cut the interminable hearings that Chutkan would have to hold to determine what is and isn’t entitled to immunity under the current indictment.
     
    Regarding Jamie’s comment re: SETI, I am confident that life is out there – maybe in the Trappist system, maybe not.  I am also pretty confident that if there is intelligent life out there that is technologically advanced to a greater degree than we are, the likelihood that we’ll ever stumble across it face to face is exceedingly remote.  Time and space, you know. Consider that it takes NASA 22 1/2 hours to get a radio signal to Voyager, and it is really just now in interstellar space.  It would take 80 years to exchange greetings between us an d the Trappist system at 40 light years away.

    And there are an estimated several hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe, with an average of about 100 billion stars in a galaxy.  And the number of planets in the habitable zone around each of those stars – insane. The odds of a couple of habitable planets in that unfathomable number of planets running across each other?  Beyond unfathomable.


    The Apple II, launched in April, 1977, 5 months before Voyager. There’s the technology level of our most distant observer – the cutting  edge of consumer electronics the year Voyager was launched.

  16. SCOTUS is in the tank for trump, so you had better hope for an Alito surge, anything close and we’ll be saluting a MAGA flag
     
    vote blue, talk some sense into some yokels 🫡 

  17. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kristi-noem-shoots-puppy-she-hated-book-1235011230/
    “South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem — who is seen as one of the top contenders to be Donald Trump’s running mate — a willingness to shoot a dog who was “the picture of pure joy” proves her governmental chops.”

    “In No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward — Noem’s forthcoming book which was reviewed by The Guardian — Noem describes in excruciating detail the brief life of Cricket, a 14-month-old wire-haird pointer puppy she intended to use as a pheasant-hunting dog.”

    “Noem describes Cricket as having an “aggressive” personality she hoped to calm by taking the dog on a hunt. According to the governor, Cricket didn’t so much hunt as have “the time of her life” chasing birds and going “out of her mind with excitement.” 

    “This would not do for Noem, who attempted to rein in Cricket with verbal commands and a shock collar before declaring the hunt a wash because an untrained puppy had a playful romp rather than read its owner’s mind.”

    “On their way home, Noem made a pit stop at the home of some locals who owned chickens. Cricket, fresh off her joyous bird-chasing romp, escaped the truck and began terrorizing the chickens, Noem writes. 
    “Like a trained assassin,” Noem writes, Cricket began “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.” While it is legal in South Dakota to kill a “dog found chasing, worrying, injuring, or killing poultry or domestic animals,” it’s by no means required, and there’s no indication the owners of the chicken made any such demand.”

    “When the governor attempted to grab her dog, Cricket allegedly made to bite her. They say dogs are like their owners, and after paying the distraught family for the value of their chickens, Noem was apparently seized by a similar deadly urge.”

    “I hated that dog,” Noem recalls, calling Cricket, “less than worthless as a hunting dog,” “untrainable,” and “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.”
    “Noem dragged Cricket to a gravel pit, and shot her dead in front of a startled construction crew. “It was not a pleasant job but it had to be done,” she recounts, “and after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

    “The governor then decided that another one of her animals was deserving of summary execution — a mean old “disgusting, musky, rancid” goat who sometimes chased her children and messed up their clothes. Pretty normal behavior if you’ve ever been around a goat but in Noem’s eyes, a capital offense. But unlike Cricket’s mercifully quick death, Noem botched her first shot at the goat, and was forced to run back to her truck for more ammo to finish off the wounded animal.”
     

    “Shortly after the bloody scene of Cricket and the goat’s demise unfolded, Noem’s children were dropped off from school.”

    Someone call CPS! on this murderous lunatic. Kristi Norm with an axe, nope, with gun, killed the animals, every one.

    Hmm, Governor Noem has a lot in common with serial killers.  They tend to start by killing animals, too.  Ladies and gentlemen, meet tRUMPsky’s probable running hate, er, mate. 
     
     

    “Dan Lussen, a professional hunting dog trainer, told Rolling Stone that a 14-month-old dog is a “baby that doesn’t know any better.”

    “Why would you put a dog down with these instincts? It’s a hunting dog, and you got chickens — he doesn’t know the difference,” Lussen adds.

    “In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Noem wrote that while “we love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” adding that she’d recently had to “put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”

    She seems to have a thirst for blood…and boy is she proud. Proud enough to put it in a book that only MAGAts will buy. A woman will be on the ticket to try to offset Harris and Roe. It won’t work. Anyone attached to tRUMPsky is a fucking horror show.

  21. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kristi-noem-sued-smile-texas-teeth-surgery-ad-1234987097/
    “MAGA Gov. Kristi Noem Is Now Being Sued for Her Weird Teeth Surgery Ad”

    “Travelers United, a nonprofit focused on travel and consumer protection, sued Noem over the video, alleging that the governor acted in a “misleading and deceptive” manner in failing to disclose that it was an advertisement. The lawsuit describes Noem as a social media influencer, citing her various accounts and that she had to have been paid for the video.”
     

    “Since Noem had her treatment done in Texas, Travellers United argues the undisclosed ad also promotes a form of medical tourism.”
     

     
    “No one with an extremely important job in South Dakota would fly to Texas to receive dental treatment and then sit in that office and film an advertisement without some form of compensation,” the filing ads, including images that match the background on Noem’s video with photos of the Smile Texas offices. “Kristi Noem acted here as an influencer. She likely either received free dental care in exchange for this advertisement, discounted dental care in exchange for this advertisement or she was paid and received free dental care for the advertisement. Unfortunately Noem did not mark this as an ‘Ad’ or ‘Advertisement’ when posting so she is participating in an unfair and deceptive practice.” 
     
     

  22. I’m equally sure we are not alone in our little 3rd rock from the sun at the tail end of a mishappen galaxy, but contact is decidedly unlikely.  Whatever is out there somewhere could be on a totally different timeline of development and comprised of who knows what lifeform. 

     

  23. Makes for interesting cartoons, books, TV shows and movies, though – not to mention songs.

  26. “Trump’s legal argument is a path to dictatorship. That is not an exaggeration: His legal theory is that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for official acts. Under this theory, a sitting president could violate the law with impunity, whether that is serving unlimited terms or assassinating any potential political opponents, unless the Senate impeaches and convicts the president. Yet a legislature would be strongly disinclined to impeach, much less convict, a president who could murder all of them with total immunity because he did so as an official act. The same scenario applies to the Supreme Court, which would probably not rule against a chief executive who could assassinate them and get away with it.”

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/trump-presidential-inmunity-supreme-court/678193/
     
    Not that it’s a good idea to test the theory, and probably too much to expect of the current crop of ‘pugs, but what if the legislature and/or the court had courage, like, umm, the Founding Fathers, all of whom risked actual death by going up against the king on behalf of liberty.
     

     

  27. I do enjoy movie night.  I have mentioned these before, I watch movies in some evenings, old and less old movies, but they should be on DVD.  There are thousands of movies to watch, and importantly, rewatch.
    Tonight is A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
    So wonderful. So many great actors, and Zero! 
     

  28. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/sport/aya-nakamura-france-culture-wars-paris-2024-spt-intl/index.html
     
    “Aya Nakamura was born in the former French colony of Mali, raised in France and is widely considered the most streamed female Francophone artist in the world.”

    “Amid widespread rumors the singer would perform at the Games’ Opening Ceremony, singing an Edith Piaf song, some members of France’s far-right have questioned whether she embodies French heritage, values and identity.Far-right politician Marion Maréchal, who is the niece of far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen and a member of the Reconquête party, told French television stations BMFTV and Europe 1 that Nakamura “does not sing in French,” referencing the blend of Parisian and African derived slang that often feature in her lyrics.”

     
    “Paris 2024’s organizing committee told CNN: “We were very shocked by the racist attacks against Aya Nakamura in recent days. We offer our full support to the most listened-to French artist in the world.”
    At the inauguration of the Olympic Aquatics Centre earlier this month, French President Emanuel Macron said that Nakamura “speaks to a good number of our compatriots” and claimed that “these games and ceremonies should reflect us, and she contributes to French culture, to French music.”

    “In an interview with France Inter, Macron’s political rival Le Pen, known for her right-wing views, claimed that the President was seeking to “outrage” and “humiliate the French people” when asked whether she thinks Nakamura opening the games would be a good symbol.”

    “When asked to further explain why this choice would be a humiliation, Le Pen responded “she does not sing in French, or a foreign language, she sings nonsense.”

    “But notable social and cultural divisions have emerged in France in recent years.
    There have been multiple bans and restrictions against Islamic dress. The nationwide ban on public schoolchildren wearing abayas, was denounced as an “Islamophobic campaign” by one politician on the left. Athletes have been banned from wearing a hijab while competing representing France at the Paris Olympic Games.”

    “Nakamura’s birth country of Mali is one of the many former French colonies. There are millions of French citizens, like Nakamura, who are either themselves immigrants or descendants of immigrants from nations formerly colonized by France.”

    “These days France finds itself embroiled in a very public debate over the recognition and acceptance of its immigrants as the country continues to reckon with its colonial history.”

    “Professor Martigny believes that the nationalist party is “stronger than ever” and that nationalists in France are “more nationalist” and more open with their views today than they were in the past.”
     
     
    White nationalism. It’s what’s for dinner.

    I don’t know why, but I have a feeling the Paris Olympics will be a sh/+show of unparalleled proportions.

  41. Route 66, I live about 2 miles south of there now. Just how far south depends on which year you are talking about. The original route which went through down town or the later route that went north of town. On the later route there is a classic old style motor court. The sign says it is still open but is now surrounded by heavy industry and parking lots. instead of open fields, as was most likely when it was first built.
    Jack

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