I have been a keen observer of political protests for many years. You could say I was there when they were born. For me, it was in Grant Park in 1968, in Chicago, Illinois. My brother and I were standing in a line of newborn Chicago policemen who were growing restless, their backs to the hotels overlooking the park. In the park, Democratic political stars Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey were putting the finishing touches on their convention appearances. The newborn policemen (mostly of Irish and Italian descent) had been goaded on by a crowd of college-age protesters, members of the vaunted youth movement of 1968, who were supporters of the novel political movement. They were going to get what any reasonable observer would expect. But the Tyrrell boys were reliably sane and disappeared from the scene.
The police rioted shortly thereafter. Blood was shed and bones were broken. A few years later I appeared on Bob Grant’s radio show with one of the Chicago rioters, Tom Hayden. Tom looked great. Well, he looked about as good as a middle-aged, debauched man could possibly look. I asked Tom to tell Bob Grant’s radio listeners what his newborn provocateurs had been doing to the police that distant afternoon. Tom paled and hesitated. I helped him by reminding him that the protesters had been saying things like, “Hey, Pat, who’s home f**king your wife?” Boom! Fortunately, we Tyrrells were secure at the Conrad Hilton.
It was like that for all the decades between the Grant Park protest in 1968 and the Trump rallies in Chicago and Ohio last weekend. I didn’t have to be at those rallies to write about them. Cable television provided me with a local color that was much the same as it was in 1968: cheerful newborn people, provocative language, threatening gestures, and middle fingers raised. Some things were novel, though, like professionally printed anti-Trump posters, professionally printed posters of Senator Bernie Sanders, and cellphones. Moreover, the cheerful protesters weren’t beaten as badly as they were in 1968, but then again, the police are better trained now.
One thing has not changed: these protesters, and those before them, have experienced the peak of their lives. From here on, it will all go downhill. Perhaps some will continue their education at a mediocre level in a third-rate diploma factory; then they will reach the years of middle age boredom, and finally the desolation of venerable age – for some, early venerable age. Those will be the lucky ones. Others will not fare so well. I know. I have followed generations of protesters.
Billionaire Trump plans to prosecute anyone arrested, and it wouldn’t cost him much of his net worth. If we had taken peace and the rights of peace-loving citizens seriously in 1968, American democracy would have been spared a lot of unrest without any loss to peaceful protesters. Incidentally, Bill Ayers of the Weathermen was on the streets of Chicago over the weekend. At 71, he looked about as good as Hayden. He continues to cause a stir, despite being indicted by the feds in the past and despite all the death and destruction he and his fellow radicals have left in their wake.
One thing was different from 1968. Back then, only the protesters and their leaders, like Hayden, blamed political candidates for the violence of the newborn protesters. Today, every candidate running against Trump—Democrats Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, even the Republican candidates—blamed Trump and his supporters for attacking the protesters. One opportunist, a former Mitt Romney strategist named Stuart Stevens, even compared Trump to the 1968 segregationist George Wallace. That was naive, but not as naive as the commentators who compared Trump to Hitler and Stalin. It’s clear that the Bush-era madness syndrome is still with us.
Meanwhile, Trump continues his astonishing campaign. He even had a heroic episode, though it went largely unreported. In Ohio, when he spoke to a huge crowd Saturday, a riot broke out behind him. It sounded to me like a gunshot, but it wasn’t. Some blockhead jumped a fence and headed toward Trump. The candidate, barely startled, ran straight toward the source of the riot. The Secret Service moved in to surround him.
Well, Trump, you had your Ronald Reagan moment and passed the test with flying colors. Continue campaigning in the flying colors that you and your opponents adopted on Thursday night at the debate, when all the Republican candidates were more statesmen than crazy Sanders or Clinton. We need to replace these 1968 Democrats next year.
