BBC: The Long Read - 1968 Democratic National Convention: A 'week of hate'

[arenean]

More than 50 years on, the Democratic Party's national convention of 1968 continues to haunt the party and cast a shadow over US politics, writes James Jeffrey.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45226132

[beachbum bob]

1. the damage to the democratic party was huge.

[zipplewrath]

2. More of a symptom than a cause

"Today it appeals to two tails of the economy: well-off urban professionals and minorities, making it hard for the party to have a coherent message,...

By 1968, the democratic party had completely desegregated. A process that started with FDR, basically ended with LBJ. The party that had been governing based upon the "solid south" had converted to a northeastern "liberal" party of college educated professionals and minorities. What you saw in Chicago was the conflict of the "old" democratic party and the emerging one. There was alot of generational change going on, but also cultural change as well. And with a war going on that the current generation didn't want to fight, and the older generations feeling like they had "fought" their wars, you had a major recipe for conflict. It makes the current Bernie/HRC conflict look amazingly tame by comparison.

[beachbum bob]

3. Hubert Humphrey was a centrist/progressive. Mayor Daley was old school and the chicago

demonstrations were leftwing led by the same types who supported Jill Stein/Ralph Nader with a touch of Bernie....not representative of American Democratic party or democratic voters..... and then devolved into a George McGovern anti-war party that got democrats handed their asses in 1972 and wasn't for the Nixon/Watergate fiasco for republicans, Jimmy Carter would have never been elected and we would have had decades of republican rule perhaps continuous to today

[zipplewrath]

4. Oh, probably not

It's actually hard to consistently hold on to the White House through multiple administrations. The American voter can be a tad fickle. If Bobby hadn't been shot, he may have actually gotten elected. McGovern on the other hand can probably be attributed to Nixon's "dirty tricks" crowd that undermined Muskie in '72. The GOP has been playing dirty for a really long time.

[Nitram]

5. I agree, Zipplewrath. McGovern and the Democratic Party were assaulted by numerous dirty tricks.

The break in of the DNC headquarters in the Watergate Hotel was just one in a long line of dirty Nixon politics. And people believed Nixon's lie that he had a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War. His secret plan was to sabotage the Vietnam peace talks during LBJ's administration, ...followed by "run away!"