Report: Biden Advisers, DNC Scheming to Thwart Protests at Chicago Convention as 1968’s Shadow Looms Large

President Joe Biden’s campaign is pursuing avenues to minimize demonstrations and protests inside the Democratic National Convention this summer in Chicago, Illinois, as the party remains fractured over the war between Israel and Hamas, according to a report.

Politico Politcs Bureau Chief Jonathan Martin reported Friday that some of Biden’s closest advisers are looking to synthesize portions of a traditional convention with 2020’s iteration – which was conducted virtually during the coronavirus pandemic – all to avert potential or even likely protests:

The goal: drive maximum viewership on television and the internet while minimizing live programming and openings for protest in Chicago’s United Center. This would mean moving party business, such as rules and platform votes, off the floor and denying would-be demonstrators a chance to seize on contentious debates.

While the Biden campaign, White House and convention planners have only just started hatching plans, senior Democrats tell me they’re discussing whether to conduct such business before the convention even begins or move it out of the arena and across town to McCormick Place, their other Chicago venue. Serendipitously, Biden’s advisers may have a very good reason to move up such housekeeping: If the Ohio Legislature does not relax its ballot certification deadline, which is before the Democrats’ August convention, the DNC may have no choice but to technically nominate the president before the conclave begins.

While donors who desire an in-person convention would likely object, Martin says it also has been floated that each state’s delegate roll call could be pre-taped.

The concern is that protesters could get tickets to the convention and cause disturbances inside—much like they did at Biden’s glitzy fundraiser in New York City in March alongside Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and at other events, per Martin.

“Shame on You, Joe Biden!” Leftist Protesters Interrupt Biden, Obama, Clinton Event

This is not to mention that dozens of “Uncommitted” delegates, accumulated through hundreds of thousands of protest votes in primaries against Biden’s handling of the war, will participate in the convention. This movement includes Arab Americans, Muslims, young voters, and far-left progressives.

Some Democrat Arab-American and Muslim leaders especially have indicated there is nothing Biden can do to earn back their vote.

Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, speaks during an election night gathering hosted by Listen to Michigan, a group urging residents to vote uncommitted in the Democratic presidential primary, in Dearborn, Michigan, on Tuesday, Februart 27, 2024. Tuesday’s primary in the crucial swing state of Michigan may deliver a symbolic rebuke to the president’s handling of the Gaza crisis, as much of its sizable Arab American population blames President Biden for siding with Israel and failing to stop the war. (Nic Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty)

Martin’s revelations come just weeks after it was reported that Hollywood Director Stephen Spielberg is strategically working with Biden’s reelection campaign and is helping to plan the August 19-22 convention.

Puck News’s Matt Belloni was the first to report Spielberg “has been quietly but actively working with the Joe Biden campaign to help choreograph August’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.”

While the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee have control – to a degree– of what occurs inside the convention, what occurs on the hot August streets of Chicago falls outside of their jurisdiction, as former Commerce Secretary William Daley noted to Martin.

Protest organizers indicated to Politico in April they expect as many as 30,000 demonstrators. For perspective, Time reported that 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets during Chicago’s convention in 1968, which resulted in nearly 700 arrests and hundreds of injuries.

Police and demonstrators are in a melee near the Conrad Hilton Hotel on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue August 28, 1968, during the Democratic National Convention. (Bettmann via Getty)

And that estimate was reported before the widespread anti-Israel protests and encampments that have taken root at universities and colleges across the country.

Radical leftist Bill Ayers, formerly a leader of the Weather Underground militant leftist group, told the outlet in April that he sees the city of Chicago using a similar stalling strategy to deny protest permits at the Democratic National Convention in August as it used in the lead-up to the 1968 convention.

But Martin noted Friday that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) was pressed this week about concerns demonstrations could mar the event for Democrats, and in response, Johnson emphasized he is a proponent of protesting.

“There’s already a joke going around Democratic strategist circles that the main difference between 2024 and 1968 is that the Chicago mayor this year will be on the side of the protesters, not the cops,” Martin wrote.