The News
Protest organizers in Chicago expect between 30,000 and 40,000 people to join Monday’s march on the Democratic National Convention, and are asking the city for a permit that would get them closer to the event itself.
“We’re going to march regardless, but we’re fighting for the best route possible,” said Faayani Aboma Mijana, a spokesperson for the March on the DNC coalition. “We’ve got our park permit, but the City has refused to allow us to use port-a-potties, a stage, and a sound system.”
The coalition, composed of more than 150 pro-Palestinian, anti-war, and left-wing organizations, has been planning its direct actions for months. It organized a smaller protest outside last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, with fewer than 1,000 people rallying in a park and marching outside the event’s perimeter — a fraction of the number of police who came from out of state to protect the convention, delegates, and guests.
Protesters’ focus had always been on Chicago, pressuring the Biden administration for a ceasefire and end to military aid to Israel. They wanted what Mijana called a route “within sight and sound” of the convention at the United Center, on main streets; the permit they obtained lets them use Union Park, half a mile from the arena, and keeps them away from the main convention district.
This, they’ve argued, is denying their First Amendment right to protest the Democrats, in what they’ve consistently called a “family friendly” plan to speak out peacefully.
“Biden and Harris have the power to stop it, and they haven’t,” Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, told reporters on Thursday. “The Democrats must end all U.S. aid to Israel immediately. It’s illegal for the city attorneys to stop us from saying this.”
Other protest groups have described their plans a little differently. In the run-up to the DNC, the Behind Enemy Lines coalition has held “Shut Down the DNC for Gaza” trainings, teach-ins, and film screenings; in May, it showed up at a DNC training to shame the upcoming “Death and Nakba Coronation.” And its promotional material has told participants to prepare for clashes with law enforcement: “Make bruises from Chicago police batons the 2024 back to school Fall fashion!”
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David’s view
Democrats have been sweating the potential protests for the better part of a year. They don’t expect serious disruptions of the convention itself; protesters will be outside of a well-guarded perimeter, and security is far more intense than it was in 1968, the go-to memory of a Chicago convention gone wrong. The federal government has designated it as a National Special Security Event, which allows law enforcement resources to pour into the city.
What Democrats worry about are the optics, which even a small number of protesters can change dramatically. Both the marchers and the Uncommitted delegates to the convention want a ceasefire and an arms embargo on Israel; Harris has ruled out the embargo, so their demand won’t be met. In November, anti-war groups briefly blockaded all entrances to the DNC; police made a single arrest and reported half a dozen injuries in the struggle to remove protesters. They wanted the image of Democrats unreasonably silencing the peace movement, but the “violent clash” got the coverage, and Democrats inside the DNC said they were afraid to leave.
A version of this played out in New York yesterday. Local Democratic leaders rallied for Harris; anti-war protesters gathered outside, made enough noise to rattle them, then stuck around and crashed an afterparty as cameras rolled. “They’re not going to get away with a drama-free convention,” Megyn Kelly told her podcast’s viewers today, rolling the images of a small group of masked protesters shouting at party-goers and resisting arrest.
The problem for Democrats – and the benefit for Kelly and other commentators – is that protests make for good footage. Protests that devolve into clashes make for even better footage. The RNC protest drew just a fifth as many people as organizers had predicted, but there were more than 200 reporters there, at least a few wearing protective vests, ready for a career-making drama that never happened.
The DNC protest’s organizers are aware of all this. Mijana told me that people were trained to start “de-escalating if there are agitators.” It just doesn’t take many people to create chaotic footage. I actually witnessed the moment in 2017 when dozens of photographers swarmed a trash can that had been kicked over, with a small fire burning inside. Nearly 2000 people were arrested at protests of the 2004 RNC in New York, but that was the dark age, before every event was captured from infinite angles by camera phones.
My point: Next week’s protests could fall a mile short of the baton-swinging nightmare Democrats are worried about, or that Behind Enemy Lines describe in their literature. It doesn’t need to be that bad to create problems, though: A few protesters finding a delegate hang-out could do it. You could count the number of protesters at last week’s Harris-Walz Michigan rally on two hands, and they drove days of coverage.
The View From the Chicago police
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling told reporters that officer training “is rooted in the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment,” per WBEZ, but that the city was “not going to allow you to riot.”
“Protesting and rioting are two different things,” he said. “When people become comfortable committing acts of violence and vandalism, that’s when it turns into a riot.”
Notable
In the New York Times, Jonathan Weisman looks at how Democrats are speaking to the small group of “uncommitted” delegates elected by Gaza-focused protest voters. They “will have unfettered access to make their voices heard,” as the party tries to keep anti-war voters inside the tent.
In the Chicago Tribune, Jason Mason has the latest on the battle for permits. One organizer “said protesters at this DNC will be better off because, unlike in 1968, ‘we do not have a shoot-to-kill mayor.’”