Watching the turmoil on college campuses today, it is becoming increasingly clear that for Democrats, 1968 appears destined to repeat itself, putting President Biden’s already doubtful reelection chances in greater risk.
Reminiscent of 1968, when the country was also in the midst of great civil unrest, and protests against the Vietnam War spread like wildfire across the country, college campuses are again the epicenter of protests driven by the far left, which have rapidly spiraled out of control.
However, unlike 1968, today’s protestors are not simply anti-war. Rather, much of the rhetoric coming from campuses is blatantly antisemitic, including calls for the genocide of Jews.
At UCLA, the chaos has gotten so bad that on Thursday morning, LAPD was forced to use rubber bullets to disperse anti-Israel protestors, and at Columbia University, NYPD was called in to remove antisemitic protestors who had seized a university building. And some schools, such as University of Southern California resorted to canceling their spring commencements due to fears of protestors.
Quite simply, the violence on campus today, which has seen hundreds of arrests and sprawling tent “encampments” take over dozens of colleges is rapidly creating the image of a Democratic Party unable to control violence, particularly among young people.
Put another way, the demonstrations, which are universally associated with the far left, lend significant credibility to former President Donald Trump’s claims of a nation engulfed in chaos that Democrats are unable to contain.
In that same vein, it remains to be seen whether Biden’s comments on Thursday, saying that the U.S. is not a “lawless country” and declaring that “order must prevail” while condemning the antisemitism and harassment of Jewish students will have any effect in calming tensions.
Progressives have condemned any moves to shut down the campus protests, framing them as heavy-handed authoritarianism, so it is likely that Biden’s words will fall on deaf ears.
To that point, the situation on campuses today is a precursor to possible violence during this summer’s Democratic convention in Chicago, also the site of the Democrats’ 1968 convention. That year, millions of Americans watched police battle raucous anti-war protestors on the streets of Chicago, a major contributing factor to the defeat of nominee Hubert Humphry.
The chaos alienated moderate, blue-collar voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania who abhorred the violence and disruptive tactics of far-left protestors and responded to Nixon’s promise to restore law and order.
Make no mistake, what happened to Humphry could very well happen to Biden.
Organizers predict hundreds of thousands of protesters will descend upon the city this summer, and anti-Israel activists taking Chicago to court in the hopes of being able to protest as close to the convention site as possible – even if the courts rule against them – something the city and establishment Democrats are desperate to avoid.
It is entirely possible, and in fact likely, that chaos at this summer’s Democratic convention would have the same effect as in 1968, particularly given former Donald Trump’s oft-repeated promises to bring law and order back to American cities.
Democrats are surely aware of the risks of a turbulent convention and the impact it could have on their prospects this November. One Democratic Senator told The Hill that if you’re attending the convention to “wear your body armor,” while Sen. Peter Welch, who attended the 1968 protests said, “The demonstrations hurt more than helped.”
For his part, Trump has already begun campaigning against Democrats’ inability to control the violence and the likelihood for more chaos this summer. The former president recently declared, “I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn.”
Indeed, polling underscores the impact this is having on Biden. Trump is leading the incumbent by 6-points (49% to 43%) but by 11-points (51% to 40%) among voters ages 18-34 years old, according to a recent CNN poll.
On Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, the CNN poll paints an even more ominous picture. Less than 3-in-10 (28%) adults approve of his handling of the conflict, while a staggering 81% of voters under 35 years old disapprove.
Taken together, Biden’s declining support in the polls along with campus unrest that shows no signs of abating could be a harbinger of ill for a Democratic Party already struggling to deal with stubborn inflation, high energy prices, resentment towards Biden’s immigration policies, and rising crime.
In many ways, Biden finds himself in a situation eerily similar to Humphry’s in 1968. He is under attack from the left-flank of his own party, which is loudly demanding that the U.S. reverse course on a war they deeply disapprove of, often resorting to disruptive tactics – or violence – to make themselves heard.
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That said, unlike the Vietnam War, the war between Israel and Hamas is not an American war, and while Biden could withdraw American diplomatic and military support for the Jewish State, doing so would surely alienate the majority of Americans who support Israel, and would go against Biden’s own personal convictions.
Ultimately, the anarchy on campuses and in American cities puts Biden in a position that, unless he is able to succeed in reaching a permanent ceasefire in the Middle East, he will have to contend with a core part of the Democratic base seething in anger, and possibly withholding their votes. At the same time, giving the protestors what they want risks alienating pro-Israel voters, and particularly Jewish voters in swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan.
Given how close the 2024 election figures to be, Democrats can ill afford their convention to be rife with anarchy and chaos, but absent a coherent solution to healing intra-party divisions, 2024 is increasingly coming to resemble the turbulent summer of 1968.
Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.