Riding home from physical therapy on the crosstown bus the other day, I found myself humming Simon and Garfunkel's 1960s classic Sound of Silence - a great song, well worth humming anytime! Yet I had to wonder whether, somewhere in the recesses of my consciousness, the "Back to 1968" vibe increasingly associated with this week's Democratic convention may have had something to do with my humming that song so thoroughly associated with nostalgia for that tumultuous era.
As almost everyone who cares already knows, the Democrats are returning to Chicago for their convention this week. For all the reminders of and comparisons with 1968, the spell was actually already broken in 1996, the last time the Democrats convened in Chicago, the city which has actually hosted 26 national conventions, of which 1968 was something of an outlier, far from typical. That said, there are some noteworthy parallels between 1968 and 2024. Now as then, the sitting President has stepped aside in favor of the sitting Vice President, who has achieved the nomination without putting the country through the distortions caused by the now-routine primary process. Indeed, it was the unhappy 1968 experience which largely led to the institutionalization of the present primary process. Our accidental liberation from that ordeal this year could conceivably kindle a greater appreciation for the traditional convention system. although I suppose that's really just the political scientist in me talking!
Of course, it would be a great thing to revitalize our diminished political parties, to increase the role of elected officials in choosing the party's nominee and diminish the role of ideological extremes and the power of money in choosing the party's nominee. We have just had a taste of how well that can work. But, again, that's probably just the political scientist in me talking! There is, sadly, little chance of it happening in reality!
Unlike 1968, however, the Democrats descend upon Chicago as a very unified party which is, as they say, in it to win it. Undoubtedly, there will be pro-Hamas protesters, making much more noise than their real numbers would warrant. The nominee has already answered them at a recent rally in Detroit, when she said "I'm speaking now." However obnoxious or embarrassing such protests may prove, they will be nothing like the protests that characterized the 1968 convention, which (while probably also representing less than a majority in the party and the country) really did represent a sizable minority, both in the party and in the country. Whatever their other divisions, Democrats today are largely united in their effort to save the country from anti-democratic authoritarianism and end the Trump threat. That represents a world of difference from the disastrously fractured party of 1968.
Tonight, President Biden gets to speak. I believe it was Harry Truman who was the first sitting president not seeking re-election to speak at his party's convention. That was in 1952. Then Eisenhower did it in 1960, Reagan in 1988, Clinton in 2000, Obama in 2016. (Notably, LBJ did not attend, let alone address, the Democratic convention in 1968.) It is only right and proper to honor Biden tonight, to honor his long career of public service, to honor his historic accomplishment in ousting Trump in 2020, and to honor his legacy of presidential accomplishment, the most consequential presidency probably since LBJ's.
And then it will be time to turn the page and look to the future. Nostalgia has limited purchase in politics, particularly right now when the degree of disillusionment with politics-as-usual has reached such significant heights. The choice this year is between the particularly dystopian future symbolized by Project 2025 and an as yet incompletely articulated more hopeful future, which it will be the convention's task this week to present to the American people.
