I wasn’t in Chicago for the 1968 DNC disaster. Instead, I was glued to a radio, at a small conference in upstate New York.
Yet at moments it felt like I was there, right next to Grant Park, and that rocks or tear gas canisters could crash through a window at any second.
The large antiwar protests, met by police and national guard rampages, shaped the campaign that followed. The images and divisions did much to doom Hubert Humphrey’s effort to stop Richard Nixon from becoming president.
Ever since, the nights of brutal spectacle, the violent images, and the trauma of defeat still haunt politically aware survivors of my generation, and the younger activists who have learned about them from us or our books.
Today, the chattering and consulting classes have been obsessing about these memories for months. Their anxiety p*rn was addiction was ratcheted up by the widespread Gaza protests on many college campuses. Will pro- and anti-Zionist conflicts make for a repeat of the 1968 Chicago disaster?
Anything could happen. And I won’t be in Chicago this time either. But not from fear. Instead, alongside the mental images from 56 years ago, there’s another set, from a similar gathering I did attend, more recently. It attracted many similar forces, but turned out very differently, and has substantially soothed my own anxiety reflexes.
What event was that?
DNC 2012, here in North Carolina, in the Time Warner Center in Charlotte.
Do you remember the riots there? The tear gas? The activists scattered by bayonet-wielding troops?
Me neither. And that time I wasn’t hearing it on the radio, but walking the streets around the Time Warner Center. The sidewalks were swarming with politicos, media from around the world, police, hangers on —
—And yes, protesters. Lots of them.
So protests, in Charlotte, yes, but no riots. No busted heads or tear gas. In terms of street theatrics, the 2012 DNC week was a complete flop — exactly what the Democrats wanted.
(Technically, I was there as a protestor, though not outside. I mounted an exhibit nearby calling for accountability for the architects and directors of the secret U. S. torture program in the “War on Terror,” which my employer, Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC, had helped expose. Obama, to his shame, had declined to pursue any torture accountability in his first term.)
The absence of turmoil at the 2012 DNC was not for lack of effort. There were numerous activist schemes taking shape when we hung our exhibit: one group was made up of very vocal young immigrants chanting, “Undocumented — un-afraid!”
Later there were plans for actions by the remnants of Occupy Wall Street, and unnamed anarchist formations. All hoped to snatch away some media attention from the main event, so near and yet so far: renomination of the national ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
So I spent considerable time walking the streets to see what would happen. A few blocks down from the convention site, there was a small park: grassy, and seemingly deserted.
As I got closer, I saw it wasn’t completely empty: a military jeep was parked in it. Two soldiers sat inside. There was no visible sign of long guns or other big weaponry, and no additional soldiers in view. The pair could be eating lunch, stretching a long smoke break, even taking a hot nap. I doubted that, but kept moving.
Behind me, closer to the arena, I began hearing chants: the undocumented were coming. I went toward them. Then I noticed the bikes.
Two lines of bikes were also rolling in my direction, one line next to each sidewalk. The riders were cops.
They were riding and walking their bikes in sync with the protesters, They weren’t in heavy riot gear, though they were unobtrusively armed. And while they weren’t talking to the protesters, I quickly realized they were guiding them, on a definite route: close to the DNC, but not too close. And making sure they kept moving.
As they came to cross streets, about a dozen bikes on each side scooted ahead into the intersection, and then eased — almost clicked into a solid line— the rear wheel of each bike dovetailed against the front wheel of the one behind, in a swift and well-choreographed move.
The result was an instant fence, mobile, with daylight showing through, but solid. It blocked the side streets, preventing protesters from peeling off the permitted route for freelance sorties. Another set of bikes was walked behind them, deterring stragglers.
Many police departments had learned a thing or two since 1968, and bike cops were a major innovation: mobile, agile, sturdy, yet much less threatening-looking than troops with bayonets.
Also quite effective. The undocumented protesters had their march, but it was completely boxed in, even as passersby had room to walk around them. The marchers stopped when they were near the arena, made defiant speeches, and a few sat down in the street to court arrest. But once the arrestees were zip-tied and shuffled away, the remainder saw they had only one way open from their mobile enclosure: there were no bikes in front.
So they trudged ahead, the bikes creeping alongside, in that one direction — which took them away from the arena and DNC, to disperse without incident a few blocks away.
I spotted Amy Goodman, host of the leftwing news broadcast Democracy Now! standing near where the arrests had happened, mic in hand, looking a bit forlorn. The protesters had come, done their thing, and gone: no fuss, no muss — and no news.
But the bike police were news to me, so I looked them up. The journal of the International Police Mountain Bike Association (IPMBA) said that
“bikes have proven to be very effective in crowd management and crowd control. With the type of training available . . . the departments can become familiar with the techniques and use the information to develop their own bicycle mobile forces. …
The Barrier technique involves linking the bikes, front wheel to rear wheel, across the area to be blocked or protected. . . . .The barrier can easily become a moving tactic called ‘mobile fencing’ if the team leader determines that the crowd needs to be moved . . . .”
Sure enough. There were a few other arrests that week, but it took determination on the protesters’ part to provoke them. Before long I was asking another question: what about if some group went rogue and attacked the cops, especially in larger numbers, and with weapons, aiming to break through their lines and get into the arena? Who was backing up the bike units?
I soon found out, by literally stumbling on the answer. Walking along the street near the arena, I got distracted by something, felt the curb recede under my foot, like at a corner and reflexively turned right.
It wasn’t a street corner, but a wide entrance midblock into an underground garage beneath the hotel or office building I had been passing. The ramp curved downward to my right, into a circular drive. Just a few yards into it was a passenger van, painted a drab green, full of soldiers in camo. A sergeant was speaking to the driver.
Wait. Soldiers underground?
I glanced down along the descending drive: there were glimpses of other drab vans, with more troops.
Here it was: the backup force, for emergencies. How many of them were here? I wondered: these underground garages often went down several levels.
My right hand automatically fumbled in a shirt pocket, coming back with my phone. I punched the camera app, and started to raise it for a quick snapshot—
“No.”
I looked up. The burly sergeant who was talking to the truck driver now stood in front of me, left hand raised. “No pictures.”
I could make out the dull dark stripes on his right sleeve. Below them was a big holstered pistol.
Putting the camera away, I walked out.
But I felt relieved. I had read that threats against Obama and his family had soared way beyond the level of his recent white predecessors. They couldn’t have too much protection. Even so, turning downtown Charlotte into an openly barricaded fortress would stir up memories of 1968, and distract the media from the glitter and rituals inside.
Not a good look. The goal was out of sight, out of (media) mind.
And when one stops to consider it, parking garages have acres of floor space, and their concrete floors are not so much worse to sleep on than Afghan or Iraqi deserts. (I think). And likely safer.
That would also explain the army jeep in the empty park: these troops were coming in from far away, at all hours; many would need local directions, from a secure source.
So the 2012 DNC ran its course, without significant disruption. And similar arrangements were made as recently as January 2021, for president Biden’s inauguration.
That time, some members of Congress got wind of the arrangements and blew their cover.
These observations shape my expectation about Chicago next week: the policing should be much more professional and restrained. For protesters who need an arrest to validate their righteousness, they’ll likely have a few carefully-arranged opportunities. And if any actual terrorists show up, for defense besides the, um, Secret Service, will likely involve battalions of crack troops stashed discreetly in Chicago’s abundance of large garages, with sore backs but ready to rumble on a few moments’ notice.
In which case, when it’s all over, I hope there will be only one final, burning, perennial question remaining, namely:
“Who’s gonna clean up all that dam confetti?”
