Democrats Feared Another 1968 Convention. They Got Something Very Different.

CHICAGO ― In addition to crowning Vice President Kamala Harris as their presidential standard-bearer and unifying the party ahead of the general election, Democrats had one other goal for their convention: to exorcise the ghost of 1968.

The 1968 convention, with its images of anti-Vietnam War protesters being attacked by Chicago police and fistfights in the convention hall that filled Americans’ televisions, has become a shorthand for chaos and disarray.

Fifty-six years later, with another president stepping aside instead of running for reelection and Democrats sharply divided over the issue of Israel’s war in Gaza, there were concerns of a repeat.

Journalist Bill Kurtis, who was 28 when he covered the 1968 convention, told CBS News , “It is eerily similar.”

“As Democrats gather in Chicago, the spirit of ’68 is a painful memory,” the Washington Post declared.

And Fox News blared:“DNC host Chicago, haunted by 1968 convention rioting, braces for bloodshed.”

But it didn’t happen.

Neera Tanden, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, channeled some Democratic relief and self-congratulation in a social media post early Friday morning.

“ If we had accountability, everyone who claimed mass chaos would ensue from gigantic protests would be apologizing today,” she said.

“The overwhelming majority of protests against Gaza have been peaceful and the protesters who planned to come to Chicago made it very clear in advance they planned to be peaceful,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“So no one should be surprised that the protests were largely calm and peaceful and that there wasn’t the chaos you might have expected to see in the worst case