"How many people are actually going to sit down and watch Tuesday night of the Democratic convention or Wednesday night of the DNC?" Bevan wondered. "I predict there will be five viral clips that get viewed more times, just on Twitter alone, than the combined audience of all three networks for all three nights because that's the reality of the media landscape now."
"Democrats aren't going to be able to control it as much as they want to," he said. "And that's why these protests, I think, have a real potential to be dangerous to Democrats. It's going to show another side of what's going on here in the city, and it's not going to be a pretty part."
CARL CANNON: In Chicago in 1968, though, the mayor was not, he was not reluctant to use force. Mayor Richard Daley was for Hubert Humphrey, and he wanted to restore order, and he gave an order to the cops, "Shoot the looters, shoot the arsonists," so it led to this great metaphorical lede where people said, "Roving Bands Of Policemen, Some Armed With Clubs..." And you're supposed to fill in the blank.
A whole generation of journalists grew up on this, the overreaction of the Chicago police to the demonstrators and it may have cost Humphrey the presidency. So now you have -- it's '68, people fear the same thing will happen, but it's the reverse dynamic. You have this Mayor Brandon Johnson who policemen's families won't let him attend their funerals. He's a community activist, if he wasn't mayor, he might be in one of these encampments. So they're thinking, well, how are the police going to control it?
I guess my answer to that is, 1968 didn't work. Maybe this would be better. Maybe just let them riot.
TOM BEVAN: I think it's gonna be a mess. There's another story, a local story by CBS Chicago, the headline is "Shortage of Chicago police officers draws concern with summer DNC coming up."
According to this article, we're down close to 2,000 police officers, and they're gonna have to pull people over from special units to do crowd control and whatnot.
Now, if you have a mayor who is, who, who does sympathize with the protesters, wants to give them their place to say what they're gonna say, and do all that. They have been negotiating with them and right now they've got a free speech zone that's like three miles from the United Center, which the protesters are not happy about. So we'll see how all that works out.
I think all of these stories touch on the fact that there is kind of a perfect storm brewing here, that could potentially be really bad, optically, for Democrats when they get here in August.
ANDREW WALWORTH: I always remember from 1968, the chant was "The whole world is watching, the whole world, the whole world is watching." This was because it was televised. These conventions have become television shows, that's largely what they are now. The Democrats have brought in Steven Spielberg to help orchestrate this convention this time around.
They understand that this is television and I'm just wondering about that aspect of it. You've got two things happening. Like I say, it's a television event, that's the way most of us will consume it. And yet you have people there on the floor who are not just extras, don't see themselves as extras. All these big egos, all these people who think that something important is gonna happen there apart from just standing in the background. So where do the protests sort of fit into that? Because the protesters must see it as, I mean, they're trying to get as much time as they can, right?
CARL CANNON: But the protesters are not wrong. So what are the conventions for? They don't choose the nominees anymore. That hasn't really been true in our lifetimes.
There was a Chicago convention where the delegates did choose the nominee, James Garfield. Well, that doesn't happen anymore. So you say, what's it for? It's to present your party to the American people, who you are. What do you stand for? What's the platform? There still are fights over platforms at Democratic conventions. Not so much Republicans. I don't think Trump had a platform last time.
But, you're reintroducing your political party to the nation, and these protesters are saying we want to be part of that conversation, we want to be part of communicating, we want to pressure the Democratic Party to listen to our desires on Gaza, and whatever else is going on.
As recently as President Obama's convention, where Joe Biden ... blurted out, "Oh, yeah, we're for gay marriage," when that was not the policy of the Obama administration. He was like a savant about that. There would have been a walkout at that convention, there would have been protests, there would have been problems, and so you gotta wrap up those issues internally in your party.
And one of them is Israel. So the protesters, what they're saying is, "Yeah, ok, but listen to us as well." I think that that's as much what modern conventions are about as anything else.
TOM BEVAN: I think part of the problem though is that The Steven Spielberg production model, tightly controlled and scripted presenting to, that's like 20 years old. That's not how it goes down.
You're gonna have more people see and learn about this convention via social media, via clips on the ground. Clashes with protesters and things like that.
I mean, how many people are actually gonna sit down and watch Tuesday night of the Democratic convention or Wednesday night of the DNC? Maybe the audience will probably build on Thursday when Biden's nominated --
CARL CANNON: Tom, our listeners will, this is POTUS on SiriusXM and we're RealClearPolitics, for political junkies. Our audience will be riveted!
TOM BEVAN: I predict there will be five viral clips that get viewed more times just on Twitter alone than the combined audience of all three networks for all three nights because that's the reality of the media landscape.
Democrats aren't gonna be able to control it as much as they want to, and that's why these protests I think have a real potential to be dangerous to Democrats because it's gonna show another side of what's going on here in the city and it's not gonna be a pretty part.
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