I’m old enough to remember the 1968 DNC convention in Chicago, and smart enough to see that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is no Richard J. Daley. So, as food prices rise with no end in sight, I advise you to stock up on popcorn before the August 19 convention in Chicago this year. As for the Democrats, I cannot imagine a scenario where there is anything but downsides for picking this site, this year.

In case you forgot, the 1968 convention began with ominous foreboding. True, the mayor had done everything he could to prettify the city, including screening the stockyards with redwood fences, but he knew the anti-Vietnam protestors would target the convention and mobilized the National Guard with orders to shoot if necessary. 

What followed was worse than even the direst pessimist could have envisioned. Written in 2008, this author described the scene and aftermath: 

The 1968 Chicago convention became a lacerating event, a distillation of a year of heartbreak, assassinations, riots and a breakdown in law and order that made it seem as if the country were coming apart. In its psychic impact, and its long-term political consequences, it eclipsed any other such convention in American history, destroying faith in politicians, in the political system, in the country and in its institutions. No one who was there, or who watched it on television, could escape the memory of what took place before their eyes.

Include me in that group, for I was an eyewitness to those scenes: inside the convention hall, with daily shouting matches between red-faced delegates and party leaders often lasting until 3 o'clock in the morning; outside in the violence that descended after Chicago police officers took off their badges and waded into the chanting crowds of protesters to club them to the ground. I can still recall the choking feeling from the tear gas hurled by police amid throngs of protesters gathering in parks and hotel lobbies.

 For Democrats in particular, Chicago was a disaster. It left the party with scars that last to this day, when they meet in a national convention amid evidence of internal divisions unmatched since 1968. [snip]

The violence that rent the convention throughout that week, much of it captured live on television, confirmed both the Democrats' pessimism and the country's judgment of a political party torn by dissension and disunity. In November the party would lose the White House to Nixon's law-and-order campaign. In the nine presidential elections since, Democrats have won only three, and only once -- in 1976, after the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign in disgrace -- did they take, barely, more than 50 percent of the votes. 

This year, it’s not just the pro-Hamas wing that will be protesting, but Black Chicagoans opposed to the Democrats’ open-border policies.

Olivia Reingold and Eli Lake detail on Free Press how far-left activists are already plotting to disrupt the DNC Convention. According to the Free Press essay, in just one day 75 organizations discussed how they would participate on the “March on DNC 2024” to disrupt the convention. They plan to so flood the streets that they could avoid arrest, they taught how to avoid the Secret Service and how to say “Death to America” in Farsi. A representative of the left’s legal arm, the National Lawyers Guild, told attendees how to spot police carrying “mass arrest kits.”

The likelihood of violence appears substantial:

The event attracted some unsavory characters. Four speakers have had their homes raided by the FBI for their alleged ties to terrorist groups, and one attendee, Jesse Nevel, was federally charged for “working on behalf of the Russian government.” One “anarchist” distributed his homemade magazine that included drawings of machetes and the essay “In Defense of Looting.” 

The prospect that the convention could devolve into the kind of anarchy actively being plotted at this conference has Chicago Democrats worried, several party insiders told The Free Press. Four politicians said they fear the city—and especially the administration of Mayor Brandon Johnson -- aren’t prepared for the protests.

Alderman Gilbert Villegas, also a Democrat, said these anti-DNC groups are “like January 6th” in their mission to obstruct a key part of the American political process. “They are looking to recruit veterans to resist the quote, unquote empire,” he said of the groups aiming to, in his words, “create chaos” this summer.

He added he’s “concerned about the safety” of the more than 50,000 visitors expected to visit Chicago for the convention, which will be held at the United Center from August 19–22. The Department of Homeland Security is monitoring the threat, according to ABC News, which obtained a bulletin warning that foreign and domestic subversives “may view these events as an opportunity to influence or disrupt the U.S. political process.”

Alderman Anthony Beale says these anti-Israel activists already pose a threat -- and have since October 7, when they started showing up to City Hall in droves, often shouting over legislators and refusing to leave the building. 

“They are yelling and screaming,” said Beale, who represents the city’s far South Side. “Some of my colleagues have been spit on. This is outrageous and it’s being tolerated.”

Minority opposition to open borders is substantial and growing in Chicago. Black voters are threatening to turn the city red and do away with Chicago’s far-left policies which created a migrant crisis that’s straining the city’s resources which impact most those at the middle and bottom rungs of the city.

In August, we can expect a significant Democrat base -- urban Black voters angry at the surge of illegal aliens and the Free Palestine movement which Democrat congressman Ritchie Torres correctly claims will endanger both the DNC and Biden’s reelection chances, focusing on the convention in Chicago. ABC has reported that the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring the threat. Its record does not inspire confidence.

Neither does Mayor Johnson’s, whose bright ideas include creating city-owned and -operated grocery stores in “underserved areas.” These areas are “underserved" because they have been “overrobbed” and city-owned and -operated grocery stores will also be, along with Chicago’s penchant for graft and corruption. If you can’t protect vital businesses from crime, you can hardly be expected to forestall or limit a coming large wave of political violence directed at the DNC and the tens of thousands of visitors to the convention.

Maybe the Democrats can create another “pandemic,” order another lockdown, and conduct the convention online.