Casting Out Ghosts of Conventions Past
As the Democrats exorcise the dark spirits of 1968, the ghost of 2008 looms larger.
As the United States celebrated its 248th birthday and Americans were sweltering in the July heat, a chill was running down the spine of the Democratic National Committee. Preparations were being made for the National Convention in Chicago and it was becoming harder to deny the eerie parallels between 2024 and 1968, the year a perfect storm of social chaos was unleashed on the Windy City, engulfing the Democrats who gathered there to nominate their candidate for president.
Earlier this summer, Joe Biden’s grip on the Democratic nomination for president seemed to be slipping, and he appeared to be following in the footsteps of Lyndon Johnson who bowed out of the 1968 race rather than seek reelection. Biden’s heartbreakingly ineffective debate performance on June 27th against Donald Trump sent his approval ratings tanking into the mid-30s, the same abysmal levels that led LBJ to withdraw in 1968. Like Johnson, Biden’s ambitious social programs and domestic policy successes were clouded by missteps overseas. Biden’s strong support for the Israeli assault on Gaza fanned the flames of a student protest movement burning hotter than any since the Vietnam War demonstrations that overran the city of Chicago in 1968. In 1968 the chaos in the Chicago streets spilled into the International Ampitheatre, where party members sparred in an open convention that pitted establishment candidate Hubert Humphrey against anti-war favorite Eugene McCarthy. With Biden fading in mid-July, the talk of an open convention in 2024 buzzed across the media. Dissension and insubordination were growing within the ranks of the Democratic Party. Even 1968’s vicious political violence (which took the lives of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy that year) resurfaced when an assassin's bullet clipped Donald Trump's ear at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally. By the time a bloodied Trump emerged alive with a clenched fist, the United States seemed destined to elect an authoritarian president with Supreme Court-sanctioned powers Richard Nixon could only dream of after defeating a demoralized and divided Democratic Party in 1968.
If you bothered to turn on cable news and watch the Democratic National Convention this week you would quickly realize that the nightmares of 1968 haunting us in July have dissolved into a distant, irrelevant memory. The Party is united, the vibes are off the charts and the protests that were supposed to rock the streets of Chicago have been dismissed more as a “farce” than a force of political chaos.
What happened? How did a fractured and feckless Democratic Party rally together to exorcise the demons of 1968? Members of the geriatric Democratic establishment like Nancy Pelosi, once seen as a liability by the Party’s younger Progressive wing, moved quickly to nudge Biden out and avoid the 1968 chaos they witnessed firsthand. To Biden’s credit, he helped break the curse of LBJ by immediately throwing his full support behind Kamala Harris, helping to put a damper on calls for an open convention. By expressing more direct condemnation of the suffering in Gaza and picking Tim Walz over the more vocally pro-Israel Josh Shapiro for vice president, Kamala eased tensions with the anti-war movement, snuffing out the possibility of 1968-level protests in the streets. While the 1968 Democratic Convention was rocked by radicalism and counter-culture debauchery that shocked the “Silent Majority” of Americans Nixon courted, Harris and Walz contrasted the normal, common sense solutions of their party against the weirdness of Trump, J.D. Vance, and the entire MAGA Movement. Democrats had learned from the lessons of 1968 and took the decisive steps needed to ensure history did not repeat itself.
While the ghastly ghost of 1968 has been cast into the shadows, a more pleasant but still troublesome spirit moves through the joyous crowds of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, the ghost of 2008. For anyone caught up in the electric energy surrounding Kamala’s campaign, comparisons to Barack Obama’s 2008 triumph come easily. While delivering a gesture of thanks to President Biden Monday night in Chicago, Kamala glowed with charisma and grace that Democrats have not seen in a candidate since Obama captured our hearts and minds in 2008. Like Obama, who rose to the top of the ticket by defeating party favorite Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries, Harris finds herself poised to run for President “before her time” after Biden’s brave yet reluctant exit from the race. Watching everyone from Hillary to AOC singing Harris's praises at the DNC, it is obvious that Kamala, just like Obama, has succeeded in uniting a party that could have crumbled under factionalism and resentment. Harris, like Obama, represents a groundbreaking change for the face of the American presidency while possessing individual charm transcending any racial or gender category she might fit into. Like the 2008 election, a Harris victory in 2024 promises the closing of a dark chapter in the nation’s history. While 2024 voters are all too aware of the exhaustion and chaos caused by Donald Trump, it is easy to forget the catastrophic legacy of George W. Bush whose misadventures in Iraq, mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, and misguided economic policies left the country on the brink of disaster in 2008. Trump’s pick of J.D. Vance for vice president also mirrors John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin in 2008, two hard right rising stars whose sensational starts on the campaign trail quickly collapsed into fodder for late light night comics and online mockery. With Vance joining Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy on a pathetic list of Trump’s most likely heir apparent, 2024 Democrats are licking their chops for future elections much like 2008 Democrats regarded the triumphantly diverse “Obama Coalition” as being powerful enough to render the old, white Republicans a permanent minority party for the foreseeable future.
For most Democrats, the ghost of 2008 is a benevolent spirit. Who wouldn’t want to feel the same goosebumps or cry the same tears of joy that were shed in 2008 when Barack Obama walked out on that stage in Chicago’s Grant Park and declared, “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” The Spirit of 2008 is a spirit of joy and hope. But it is also a spirit of naivete and overconfidence. That’s not to suggest that Obama himself was particularly overconfident and naive - all of us who voted for him thought we had radically changed the world for the better on November 6, 2008. None of us, Obama included, anticipated the tidal wave of Republican obstructionism awaiting him once he was sworn into office.
Of course, there are notable differences between the fate of Obama and the conditions that Kamala Harris will face if she emerges victorious on November 5, 2024. Kamala won't take power amidst an economic meltdown like the one awaiting Obama after his inauguration. As the sitting Vice President, Kamala cannot tap into themes of Hope and Change without explaining how her reforms reinforce or diverge from the policies already advanced during the Biden Administration. While Kamala will undoubtedly face the same racially-charged venom from the Right that Obama faced, as a woman she will have to deal with yet another layer of prejudice from political figures at home and abroad. Despite these notable differences in circumstances, here are a few quick lessons Kamala can and should learn from Obama’s frustrating and contentious eight years in office.
The Real Fight Begins When You Win
Kamala Harris will cross the country over the next few months declaring, “When we fight, we win.” But even if she wins on November 5th her fight will have only just begun.
After his resounding victory in 2008 and a blue wave of Democratic wins in the House and Senate, Obama believed he would enter the White House with a popular mandate to move his agenda forward. While Obama voters were shedding tears of joy at his January 2009 inauguration, the Koch brothers were meeting in Palm Springs with their billionaire buddies to craft a plan that would discredit the young, charismatic president and derail his policy agenda. Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell perversely shifted the objectives of their party from serving their constituents to making Obama a one-term president. By the time his eight years in office ended, Obama admitted to being blindsided by the “severity of partisanship” and the difficulties of overcoming the Republican propagandists’ ability to sway public opinion against him.
If Kamala Harris and the Democrats deliver a brutal blow to the MAGA movement this November they must learn from 2008 that their electoral success will only inspire a more toxic and aggressive pushback by the Republicans. Efforts must be made to connect with average Americans and inspire confidence in the Harris platform. The Democratic Party must do more than merely ask for votes and donations - it must get into the trenches and proactively promote the policy wins of the Harris administration to all Americans and explain how those policies tangibly improve their everyday lives. If Kamala does not continue fighting after November 5th, 2024 she will not win anything more than an election.
Never Put Those Who Created Problems in Charge of Fixing Them
Obama took office during the most terrifying financial crisis since the Great Depression. It is hard to judge Obama harshly when he admits in A Promised Land, “I needed people who had managed crises before, people who could calm markets in the grip of panic - people who by definition, might be tainted by the sins of the past.” Trusting Wall Street adjacent advisors to fix the crisis Wall Street created inevitably led to the banks being bailed out first, leaving Obama with little political or fiscal capital to rescue the average American homeowner against the protests of the Tea Party Movement. The accelerating rate of wealth inequality over the past 16 years is the bitter fruit of trusting the bankers to clean up the mess they created.
If Kamala Harris is to restore the American Middle Class she cannot seek the consent and cooperation of those who have pillaged this country for decades. She cannot trust the banks and property developers to fix the housing crisis. She cannot trust oil and gas companies to lead a green transition. She cannot trust private insurance and pharmaceutical companies to create a more just and efficient healthcare system. She must use her power to make those who have weakened our country pay and ensure that those who have been preyed upon are made whole.
Never Negotiate Against Yourself
Obama ran on a platform of change, but a big part of that change was geared toward healing partisan wounds and working across the aisle with Republican leaders. To that end, Obama created centrist legislation that he expected Republicans to find palatable e.g. the Affordable Care Act, crafted from elements of the GOP’s 1993 HEART Act and Massachusetts’ 2006 health care reform bill signed by Mitt Romney. Obama was rewarded for this act of pragmatic bipartisanship by being branded a “Socialist,” being caricatured by racists as an African witch doctor, and being thwarted at every turn by Republican Congressional leadership dead set against his healthcare reforms.
The lesson Kamala should learn from 2008 is that there is little to be gained by preemptively negotiating herself down to policies the Republicans should find palatable. She must start negotiations far to the left if she is to pass legislation that effectively moves the needle in correcting the problems faced by the American people.
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“Our job is to convince people that democracy can actually deliver. And, and in doing that, we can’t just point to what we’ve already accomplished,” Obama declared this past Tuesday night before an enraptured DNC audience. “We can’t just rely on the ideas of the past. We need to chart a new way forward to meet the challenges of today. And Kamala understands this.” More than just instilling bittersweet nostalgia for our naive dreams of 2008, Obama’s speech at the 2024 Convention should give us hope that he can be the change needed to guide Kamala Harris past the pitfalls that awaited him after his historic victory. The Democrats and Kamala Harris succeeded in learning from the lessons of 1968 to avoid disaster in 2024. It remains to be seen whether they are wise enough to learn from the lessons of 2008 and finally fulfill Obama's promise of Hope and Change in the years to come.