In Chicago, the Whole World Is Watching Again – Truthdig

I was among the multitudes of Americans who watched the Democratic National Convention on television in August 1968. I was 18 and about to head off for my freshman year in college. I was a new convert to the anti-war movement, but still had a lot of ambivalence about marching in demonstrations. Seeing the Chicago police brutalize protesters in Grant Park, on Michigan Avenue and outside of the Conrad Hilton Hotel radicalized me. I would never look at our government or our elected political leaders with naive innocence again. 

In the aftermath of the convention, I followed the trial of the Chicago Eight with rapt attention. Defense attorneys Bill Kunstler and Lenny Weinglass became personal heroes of mine. I had the good fortune of working with both as a young lawyer and have never lost my admiration for them. They are among the best advocates our legal profession has produced, and the standards they set are carried forward today by lawyers in the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center and many other organizations.  

As the Democrats convene again for their national convention, it’s impossible not to see the parallels between 1968 and the present. The host city has never shed its well-earned reputation as a hotbed of aggressive policing. Then, as now, the incumbent president (then Lyndon B. Johnson, now Joe Biden) announced he would not seek reelection during his term, and the party turned to the incumbent vice president (Hubert Humphrey/Kamala Harris) to face off against the Republican Party (Richard Nixon/Donald Trump) in the upcoming election. The country was then involved in a horrendous war in Indochina. Now, it’s Gaza. 

But history, for all of its echoes and rhymes, never repeats. Rather than resembling 1968 — when the left was ascendant in the United States and globally — the contemporary political landscape more closely resembles 1932, when fascism threatened to overtake the world. In June, far-right nationalist parties scored unprecedented victories in elections to the European Parliament. Both Turkey and Hungary have gone neo-fascist. Liberal democracy lingers in Great Britain and France but hangs by a thread. 

Here at home, the GOP has become the party of Trump, a malignant narcissist who makes Nixon look like a Boy Scout and a patriot. Trump and the MAGA movement he leads represent an American form of fascism, animated by nostalgia for a mythical past, and driven by white supremacy, hyper-masculinity, oligarchic cronyism, racism and cult-like adoration of the leader. 

Today’s Democratic Party is also markedly different from the party of 1968. If elected, Harris will become the nation’s first female president and, if backed by sufficient support in Congress, she will be in a position to implement the most progressive platform since the New Deal. 

None of this means that protesting at the convention is a waste of time, or that it should be condemned. As progressives, protest is in our DNA. But even as we mobilize to hold Democrats accountable, it is critical also to keep our eyes on the need for unity in the November elections against Trumpism. 

In an October 2020 interview with Salon, Noam Chomsky put it this way:

My position is to vote against Trump. In our two-party system, there is a technical fact that if you want to vote against Trump, you have to push the lever for the Democrats. If you don’t push the lever for the Democrats, you are assisting Trump. We can argue about a lot of things, but not arithmetic. You have a choice on Nov. 3. Do I vote against Trump or help Trump? It is a simple choice. He’s the worst malignancy ever to appear in our political system. He is extremely dangerous.

That was four years ago. His admonition has only become more forceful since.