United States | Lexington

Why the 2024 Chicago convention is not the 1968 convention

And the war in Gaza is not Kamala Harris’s Vietnam

Kamala Harris walking with the ghost of an 1968 anti-war protestor behind her.
Illustration: David Simonds

Democrats plan to convene in Chicago next week to celebrate as their presidential candidate a sitting vice-president who did not win a single primary vote. The candidate, a former senator, has a good record on civil rights but is tied to the White House’s support for an unpopular war. Kamala Harris may be no Hubert Humphrey, but the parallels with the Democrats’ calamitous Chicago convention of 1968 have sharpened since she replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. Party insiders ordained her, as they did Humphrey to replace Lyndon Johnson, and like Humphrey she has yet to distance herself from the president’s handling of a war that has infuriated her party’s left.

Explore more

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Why 2024 is not 1968”

From the August 17th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from United States

Xiaohongshu And TikTok Logos

A protest against America’s TikTok ban is mired in contradiction

Another Chinese app is not the alternative some young Americans think it is

Joe Biden drives a machine that's rolling out a carpet of the US flag for Donald Trump to walk on

How Joe Biden wound up serving Donald Trump

In some ways, his administration will look less like an interregnum than like MAGA-lite


Kids skate at the Venice Skatepark in LA, which is covered in ashes as smoke rises from the Palisades Fire

How bad will the smoke be for Angelenos’ health?

Expect more sickness and disrupted schooling


Should you have to prove your age before watching porn?

America’s Supreme Court weighs a Texan law aimed at protecting kids

Tulsi Gabbard, Sean Penn and the hunt for an American hostage

A controversial trip to Syria in 2017 produced a possible sighting of Austin Tice, an imprisoned journalist

How flush Americans feel depends on their views of Donald Trump

Republicans expect a Trumponomics boom, Democrats dread a bust