CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker insisted that the violent history of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in the Windy City won’t repeat itself this week — despite the thousands of protesters expected to wreak havoc at the venue.
Pritzker (D) on Sunday downplayed fears of demonstrations escalating at this week’s convention, saying a lot has changed in the last half-century and that authorities are ready.
“The fact is, it’s a whole different ballgame. Here we are 56 years later, we’ve got a very, very different situation in the Democratic Party,” Pritzker told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“The Democratic Party, honestly, has coalesced around this candidate. That was not the case in 1968. Policing is all different now, and we’ve got technology at work,” he added. “The protesters are protesting something that is very far away from here — very important — but it’s not about people getting drafted from here, going abroad.”
Since the 1860s, Chicago has hosted at least 10 Democratic conventions and 14 Republican ones, but the 1968 one is perhaps the most infamous.
The party had splintered bitterly over the Vietnam War. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson dropped out of the race months earlier, which paved the way for a rocky nomination process.
Ultimately, the 1968 convention saw intense feuding over which delegates should be seated, the party platform’s language, and then anti-war protests which devolved into riots.
Democrats went on to lose that presidential election to Richard Nixon.
Some observers have noted parallels between the 1968 convention and this week’s convention from Monday through Thursday.
Both conventions took place in the same city, the incumbent presidents both passed the baton, and there was a huge divide within the party on foreign policy.
In this case, Democrats have been at odds over the Israel-Hamas war. Throughout the primary process, hundreds of thousands of voters marked themselves as some iteration of “uncommitted” to protest President Biden’s support for Israel.
Scores of groups have planned demonstrations in Chicago throughout the convention process, raising concerns that history may repeat itself.
Pritzker took note of other conventions in Chicago such as the 1996 Democratic one and underscored that authorities intend to keep both protesters and attendees safe this time.
“If they’re troublemakers, they’re going to get arrested and they’re going to get convicted. But the fact is that the vast majority of people who are protesting — and we’ve seen this before — are peaceful protesters, they want to have their voices heard,” he said.
“They’re going to be heard, no doubt about it. And we’re going to protect that.”
After Biden’s debate performance against former President Donald Trump sparked a mutiny among Democrats in late June, Pritzker was caught in a hot mic moment venting, “I don’t like where we are.”
He stopped short of calling on Biden to step aside publicly.
“There is an enormous amount of reverence for Joe Biden. For 50 years, he has fought for the American people and for working families,” Pritzker reflected. “Everybody was looking at the polls … there is a danger on the horizon here, and that is that Donald Trump might become president again.”
“They need to know that who they’re voting for is somebody that they can be excited and electrified by, and I think they weren’t feeling that about Joe Biden,” he bluntly added while hailing Biden’s accomplishments.
Now the billionaire Hyatt Hotel heir is taking an optimistic tone about the party’s prospects under Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This is a candidate who’s energized the party in a way that I haven’t seen certainly since ’08,” he said of Harris. “I’ve not felt this kind of energy and electricity at any convention other than the one for Barack Obama.”
Meanwhile, heading into the convention, Pritzker is being greeted with a $700,000 attack ad accusing him of failing to deliver progress for black residents in his state.
“Gov. JB Pritzker thinks the convention is one big party. For Illinois’ black community, his record is nothing to celebrate,” the ad sponsored by the National Black Empowerment Fund claims.
The video shows the billionaire — once considered as a potential replacement for President Biden — toasting with what appears to be a glass of champagne
The ad claims Pritzer has failed to produce promised jobs in the legal cannabis and green energy industries for black residents or equalize funding for black students in public schools.
“No wonder Illinois ranks last in the nation for racial equality,” the ad says.
