The Democratic Party should cancel its national convention in Chicago in August and hold its meeting via Zoom, as it did during the 2020 campaign and the coronavirus pandemic — for the sake of the city, and for the country as well.
Set aside, for the moment, the obvious problems of hosting a political showcase in a city that has become synonymous with Democratic Party misrule. The crime wave; the failing schools; the migrant crisis — all are Republican talking points. Lord knows what possessed President Joe Biden to pick Chicago, in a dysfunctional deep blue state that is already lock for him in November. Regardless, he now has a golden opportunity to undo a terrible political mistake.
Chicago will be a battlefield worthy of the chaos of 1968, when anti-war protesters rioted in Grant Park and fought in the streets with police. The anti-Israel mobs that have taken over university campuses — disrupting classes, taunting Jews, vandalizing buildings, and assaulting journalists — will converge on the Windy City like the Great Chicago Fire. They intend to force their policies onto the party’s agenda and to punish Biden for his perceived support of Israel.
Never mind that Biden has been blasting Israel and its democratically-elected government for months, denying the victory over Hamas for which hundreds of Israelis have already given their lives. The activists have inverted reality.
The clashes with campus and local police are just the warmup for what awaits in Chicago. The thugs who assaulted me at UCLA last week were highly-trained. The White House equivocated; Attorney General Merrick Garland and Civil Rights Division head Kristen Clarke did nothing to investigate the organizations and donors who violated the civil rights of Jews in a coordinated campaign across America. They will not catch up in time for the August meeting.
While there might be some degree of schadenfreude for Republicans in seeing Democrats destroy themselves, repeating the grim history of 1968 and tanking Biden’s chances of re-election, some things are still above politics.
And one of them is the love of one’s hometown — that is, the hometown my family adopted when we immigrated in the late 1970s. I grew up in the near western and near northern suburbs, and loved Chicago in my bones. I still do.
It was, in retrospect, the ideal time to be there. The 1980s were the era of Ferris Bueller, and other John Hughes masterpieces. Mike Ditka led the Chicago Bears to glory after decades in the doldrums. In the 1990s, Air Jordan landed and brought NBA championships to the city. The Bulls dynasty coincided with an economic revival, one Democrats could rightly celebrate at the 1996 Democratic National Convention, which I covered for college radio.
But since the departure of the Daleys from City Hall, corrupt though they were, Chicago has faltered. The radicals have taken over, personified in the hapless administrations of Rahm Emanuel, Lori Lightfoot and Brandon Johnson. They could not handle the Black Lives Matter riots, which smashed the Magnificent Mile and local neighborhoods alike. Why should anyone expect Chicago to fare any better when faced with pro-terrorist mobs on city streets?
No — Democrats should do what they did in 2020, when they held a virtual convention in Milwaukee. Make a nice video about the rich history of the city: its rise from the ashes, its bold ambitions, its rich diversity. And then do the rest on Zoom. After all, it worked in 2020. Save Chicago from the violence; from the floor fights; from the inevitable attacks on synagogues.
It’s the right move, politically and morally. The Democratic base is simply too dangerous.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
