Decryption | From Vietnam to Gaza: echoes and dissonances

(New York) There are obvious echoes between the student protests of 1968 and those making headlines in the United States this spring. But are these echoes stronger than the dissonances between these events? The answer could weigh on Joe Biden’s chances of being re-elected.

April 1968: the campus of Columbia University becomes the scene of student demonstrations with national repercussions inspired in part by a foreign war, the one in which the United States is involved in Vietnam.

April 2024: the campus of Columbia University is the focus of the spread of student demonstrations relating to a distant conflict, that between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and in which the United States is indirectly involved.

August 1968: the city of Chicago hosts the Democratic Party convention, which is largely overshadowed by television images of the violent police repression of demonstrations against the Vietnam War. The chaos helps the campaign of the future winner, Richard Nixon, law and order candidate.

August 2024: the city of Chicago will be the site of the Democratic Party convention, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators will meet. Democrats fear that scenes of chaos could work in favor of Donald Trump.

But enormous dissonances exist between the events of 1968 and those of 2024, according to Michael Cohen, author ofAmerican Maelstroma book about 1968, a turbulent and tragic year marked by two political assassinations, those of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, race riots and anti-war protests, among others.

“These events are not comparable,” says Michael Cohen, a researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies at Tufts University. “We are talking about a war in Vietnam where half a million American soldiers were fighting in 1968. There are no American troops in Gaza. There was a real conscription in 1968 against which many students demonstrated on campus to avoid being sent to Vietnam. This situation does not exist today. The war in Gaza is simply not an issue that rises to the same level as the Vietnam War in terms of impact in the United States. »

Far from priorities

Michael Cohen supports his point by citing the results of a survey conducted by Harvard University among 18-29 year olds this spring. According to this poll, 51% of members of this cohort are in favor of a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, compared to 10% who are opposed.

But the war between Israel and Hamas comes on the 15^e ranking among the 16 issues that concern them most, far behind inflation, health care, housing, gun violence and jobs, among others.

“I hate to say this, but this is an elite-fueled affair,” says Michael Cohen. This is happening on a small number of campuses with a small number of students. And the reason we’re paying so much attention to it is because it’s happening at Ivy League schools, where many journalists studied. They feel connected to it. And the content is excellent. You have demonstrations, police attacking protesters and anti-Semitic rhetoric. It makes for good television. But this is not representative of the situation of most young people. I think we need to come back to reality. »

The Democratic Party convention in Chicago next August could confirm or contradict Michael Cohen’s words. That of 1968 brought together groups united by their opposition to the Vietnam War, but diametrically opposed in their approaches. The group led by antiwar activists Tom Hayden, David Dellinger and Rennie Davis wanted to avoid any violence or disruption of the Democratic convention. The Yippies – the International Youth Party led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin – instead called for anarchy, threatening to introduce LSD into the city’s water supply and proposing to camp illegally in Lincoln Park with their presidential candidate, a pig called Pigasus.

“Police riot”

During the third evening of the convention, the most violent, the Chicago police officers were unleashed on 10,000 demonstrators, in the heart of the city, under the watchful eye of the cameras. In the amphitheater where the convention took place, the screens broadcast live images of what a commission would describe as a “police riot”. At the convention podium, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff denounced the “tactics of the Gestapo on the streets of Chicago.” At the same time, viewers could read on the lips of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley the following words addressed to Senator Ribicoff: “Fuck you!” Fuck you! »

Richard Nixon didn’t ask for that much. “The anti-war protests were sort of lumped together by Nixon with the dramatic increase in crime over the previous four years,” says Michael Cohen. This fueled the idea that the country was collapsing. The protests were part of Nixon’s broader criticism of Democrats. »

Michael Cohen does not believe that the protests against the Gaza war in Chicago will have a significant impact on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, as they did in 1968. “Vietnam was the number one issue in 1968 , he said. This was largely the reason why (Lyndon) Johnson gave up the presidency and also the reason why (Eugene) McCarthy and Kennedy ran. Vietnam was a huge issue. Gaza is not. »

This is exactly what we will see in Chicago.