Chaos at the Convention: The 1968 DNC 

Lance, I have enjoyed lots of your videos. It's a shame the MAGAbots have infested the comments. Degrades your efforts, sadly.

@@gus473 gus, you know nothing about history. the first assassination attempt in 43 years just happened so you aren't talking to "MAGAbots" you are talking to regular people who are here for that moment in time. additionally, by calling them that its very clear where your own politics lie, in the same realm as assassination attempters

@TheHistoryGuyChannel - Thank you for a superb historical presentation, sir.

Abbie Hoffman was asking People to come to Chicago. What would Mayor Darly say?

I'll bet they've found the keys now, based on the insane amount of crime that goes on in Chicago.

@@peterrichards931 It depends on where the hotel is. A lot of crime does happen in Chicago, but a LOT of it happens in a few specific areas.

Al Cpone's gangs were .more civilised than Eugene McCarthy's, that's why.

@@drdiabeetus4419 Street access to a major hotel in a major city downtown must remain open at all times.

Same. Even politics can be discussed without editorializing.

Too bad people in the comments don’t feel the same.

Mr. Geiger treads the fine line between family show and pablum in this one. THG fails to mention that what has commonly become known as the; Police Riot At The Convention: The 1968 DNC. This brought on in no small part by a forced draft of eighteen year olds who would not be allowed to vote until twenty-one and a out of control police department. With the assassination of peace advocate RFK before the convention and the last minute nomination of a genuinely characterless yes-man like Hubert Horatio Humphrey. This paved the way too one of the darkest chapters in American history, which seems to be coming full circle.

He's great at choosing topical stories without being polarizing. Always learn something & come away more relaxed

History should be more "story" and less "his-story". That is nearly impossible when you try to add context to it because you seemingly add a preference in the perception of the already politicized mind.

I'm not a Democrat, so thank God I missed that! I'd have immediately become a Republican! 🤣

The perceptive if ultimately doctrinaire Joe McGinniss ("The Selling of the President 1968") brought forth a quip that's so apt one doesn't even want to know if it's apocryphal: A couple days after Election Day, counting (pardon me, "counting") was still going on, and there was a serious jam: third-party candidate George Wallace (governor of Alabama), in what stands as the Electoral College's strongest independent victory, had taken 5 states with 45 Electoral votes, and on Wednesday and Thursday, pending the results of two or three states' counts ("counts") yet unfinished, Richard Nixon held 260-SOME Electoral votes and Hubert Humphrey somewhere under 200. The dynamic: the yet-final states were "small" ones with 3 or 4 or 5 Electors, AND ILLINOIS, WITH TWENTY-SIX. ILLINOIS held the balance: had Nixon taken the little states but not won Illinois he'd have finished JUST SHY, but EVERLASTINGLY SHORT of 270; way more than incidentally, Humphrey had fallen so short (his ultimate total was 191) he COULD NOT HAVE WON IN ANY EVENT; for the first time in more than a century the election WOULD HAVE GONE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES--- Late Thursday / early Friday, the numbers from CHICAGO came through. Always, for SOME reason, Chicago's have been the last results in Illinois. Chicago always goes Democrat, always always always. And it went for Humphrey in '68. But just a LEEEEETLE LESS HEAVIER than expected. "Downstate" Illinois always goes Republican; it's said that in 1960, THAT election teetering, Mayor Daley asked Joe Kennedy Sr., JFK's dad, how many Chicago votes were needed to tip Illinois, and thus the Presidency, to his son, and, voilá, Chicago belatedly delivered exactly that pile and a cushion: JFK in, Nixon, uh, not; flash ahead, now, to '68 and Joe McGinniss's spicy quote: Early the Friday after voting, for the first time in decades, Illinois landed for a Republican. Its 26 Electors carried Nixon over 270 because Chicago, while going to Humphrey, went for him (said THE NUMBERS, ANYWAY) just that LEEEEETLE bit less than they, uh, might. Joe McGinniss said that someone in a position to know was of the view that "even Richard Daley wouldn't steal the Presidency from the same man twice." I think all must agree that's a pithy line. Make of its chaotic surroundings what you will.

The rock group Chicago, on their first album, had a song about that...

@@AlanToon-fy4hg Prologue, August 29, 1968

@@AlanToon-fy4hg It would seem that is the point of reference 😂

Some people just don't learn the first time around.

History does not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes a lot!

If it did not dent Flakey Floonts noggin on the first attempt, well, just hit again?

@@danielhutchinson6604 Be careful, your comment can land you in trouble. As it should!

@@TreeLBollingTreeMan Having an opinion is now against the Law?

Now watch how they learned nothing and do it again.

I was 12 and remember that the convention was the only thing on tv.

I was also 11 and I was very hopeful that Democrats would win. I expected Humphrey to win, and it was later suggested that had the campaign continued another week, Humphrey would have won. He was closing the gap as his numbers continued to improve.

My grandparents, who lived in Chicago, came out to CA to stay with us for a while in 1968.

I was sort of expecting some kind of surprise about who the ex-GI was with the possibility that it was (insert famous name or tech pioneer) or something great happened at the party (future wife maybe), but sadly the story just ended.

@biffmalarkey well there is a funny detail I left out. My family is Mexican American and the ex- GI guy was a black dude. My grandpa saw him wearing his army fatigues and asked if he was in the army. The guy apparently said "Oh yeah I used to be but NOW I'm in the people's army! They're coming for the blacks and then they'll come for the Chicanos. So we gotta stick together" 😅. And then he invited my grandpa to the party.

@@Spongebrain97 Thanks for the added tidbit.

@@Spongebrain97 Sounds a lot like he might have been a member of the Black Panthers? That's very similar to what i've heard of a lot of their rhetoric. Chicago was also a big center for them.

Wrong. Johnson decided not to run for another term. He didn't resign; only Richard Nixon ever resigned the Presidency.

He didn't resign. Duh😂😂😂😂

@@steveshampine9047 her exact words are lost....she and her team won a Pulitzer in journalism for that Charleston newspaper back in 1962.... I miss her and she would thank you for correcting me. She got to ride on the Thresher too before it was lost..

Between the ‘68 Chicago Convention and Mayor Daily(?) I, a Democrat, distrusted ANYONE from Chicago. So I (a democrat) couldn’t vote for Obama. Glad he won but if Romney had won, we wouldn’t have had to live through a tRumpelthinskin fake presidency! I also blame Obama for making fun of tRump at the WH correspondents dinner. He must have vowed in his little mind to seek revenge.

The similarities were amazing, a President who was unable to declare War on Poverty, cause He had a War over there. Old Joe wanted to build back better, but a War over there...... If you think back the similarities were amazing. The Minneapolis Star and Tribune was pre folded for us.

They were also slave owners so let’s not venerate them quite so much. In truth political parties are the end result of the system they themselves had a part in creating. They were always inevitable.

Yet every President beginning with George Washington were party affiliated

Washington was a Federalist. Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican.

Me, too.

They won't. She has secured all the delegates she needs, and then some, via Zoom call. Waltz isn't going to be an issue. He became wildly popular from the get go. Besides: When the delegates vote for a ticket, they vote for the candidate and the VP candidate on that ticket. The delegates know that. They had already voted for her in 2020, and they will do it again in September. So who exactly would be protesting?

Wasn’t Ted’s brother Bobby, the guy who was running for president was shot, the Democratic senator from New York? Jacob Javits, the other senator from New York, was rather progressive in his day, but was Republican.

I do too; I was in the military in '68. Fun times. Not.

“A certain age” lol ashamed to admit you’re a boomer? 😂

The Apollo 8 mission to orbit Earth's Moon 10 times with Borman, Lovell, ad Anders on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day was far and away the highlight of that news-intense year of 1968. TIME Magazine designated the astronaut trio as its Men of the Year.

​@@Hola-ro6yvAfraid to admit that you are a Minillenial?

I was thinking the same thing!

😀 😀 🍺🍺

There will be blood

I don’t foresee anyone challenging.

It's interesting that you don't know how to Spell...

Unless you're putting him up for an award, the word is noble.

The most accurate political statement ever made

So organizations can’t be incompetent? Apparently the DNC didn’t get the memo

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. Will Rogers

Will Rogers was an idiot.😮

I love Wil Rogers Jr’s quote about his father. “Dad was full of $h!t.” 🤣😂

I was 13 I remember Dan Rather being arrested on the Convention floor

If that wouldn't have changed your world view, Kent State just two years later would have.

Oh it'll be fun. Bring the popcorn, too.

There are certainly some similarities, but there are no strong challengers for Harris with the convention and there is Vietnam-like controversy to draw massive protests in the streets.

I'm not 100% sure I want to see but to say the least it will be interesting.

Another invasion of the Capitol in 2025 by the same sore losers as last time? 😉

No, what we saw with Hulk Hogan at the just recent Republican convention is just the start of "we ain't "see" nothing yet."

Are the Natural Guards out protecting the Chicago Water Supply? We don't want no Acid Trips for Convention Goer's.....

@@WAL_DC-6B Jesse Ventura was about to go into the Navy in 1968...... How old was the Hulkster? Trump is big in Allstars Wezzilng.....

It's an Irish curse......

Veeps Humphry and Harris run for President without picking up one primary vote. amazing.

Nixon was a criminal. So is Trump.

Biden was “kindly” asked to see himself out. It wasn’t a personal choice…. As if he could have made one cogently 🤭

His handlers opted him out.

@@Concetta20 It took until the 1980's to pay off Brown and Root..... The similarities make it seem like a TV Summer Re-Run. But the longer you look at it, the more similar the two Elections seem?

It was, though just barely before.

He was not allowed to take a stand on Vietnam against his boss LBJ until it was too late in the campaign.

Furthermore, as a New Englander from the Constitution state, New York is not part of New England, and for a New York team to call itself Yankees is an abomination! ( I just had to remind other folks of that salient fact).

For the best, it was probably CIA agit prop anyways

Chicago Eight

The other defendants always included Bobby Seale even when the press no longer did.​@@OldOso-eb5fs

There were actually 8 one was underage so they let him go.

@@semigoth299 Bobby Sealed was not underage. Do more research.

There's a reason that "May you live in interesting times" is a curse, after all.

Imperfect democracy leads to no democracy though.

Thank goodness we are a constitutional Republic. The founding fathers disliked democracy. Democracy is mob rule. How would you like your hemlock Socrates, in a cup or a bowl?

Somebody else in the comments here backed up what you wrote with his own similar experiences of loading heavy-duty military equipment into planes in Texas, but it never left for Chicago.....

@@goodun2974 Yes, we sat at the Airforce base for days!

@@cicad2007 , probably a good thing that the equipment and additional manpower stayed in Texas; it could have been way worse than Kent State. The other commenter said there were howitzers, and flame throwers (to be used as teargas launchers), on the planes.

The Dems got McGovern in '72 thanks to Nixon breaking in.

For sure. Look at what they did to Bernie Sanders. Not that I'm a Bernie Bro.

I was17 and my 19 year old brother had just died in Vietnam. It was beyond just being a mess. This year will most likely get even uglier!

@@SeanVplayer i hope not... ill be protesting in chicago this year and want a peaceful demonstation.

Sadly, less than two years later would be the four unarmed Kent State University, Ohio students killed by Ohio National Guard soldiers while observing an anti-Vietnam War demonstration on campus during a break between classes. Nine other students, aged 19 and 20 years old, were wounded with one sustaining permanent paralysis. It was an event that shocked many of us at the time since we had never witnessed the military used in this way.

Singapore president said we held Commies off for years, enough for SE Asia to get its act together. Skyscrapers in Asia? Whowouldathunkit.

@@Handle1969 This is very interesting, never heard it before. I've got a lot of respect for Singapore.

Wasn’t really hard to predict Biden would drop out

@@gavindy_Sv2 A lot of people saw it coming months ago.

@@immikeurnot true it’s been a possibility for a while.

@@gavindy_Sv2 yeah but that’s not going to stop me from pretending to see the future

@@gavindy_Sv2 It's been a likelihood for over four years. As soon as everybody suddenly "noticed" how far gone Biden was at the debate, it became a certainty.