#dnc primaries

For an entire week in 1968, protesters and the Chicago police skirmished, on national television, with the whole world watching. Finally, that Wednesday—nomination day—15,000 people moved into Grant Park in the heart of downtown Chicago for an anti-war MOBE rally. During some speeches, a shirtless, long-haired man began to lower the American flag (planning, it was later reported, to turn it upside down in the international symbol of distress). But as he removed the flag, the police suddenly snapped. They charged into the crowd, swinging billy clubs indiscriminately, seizing demonstrators, clubbing them, and tossing them into paddy wagons.  A 2008 NPR special details the way the Democratic nomination process was radically revised after the 1968 fiasco at the Chicago Convention in order to win back the droves of disgusted voters who’d abandoned the party, and a major component of that revision was giving the people a voice in the nominating process by instituting primaries and caucuses. Had they not done this, had they not promised the American people a fair and balanced democratic primary process, the Democrats risked losing party viability and being replaced by another party that was more appealing for voters to engage with. By admitting that they have been lying about taking this promise seriously, the DNC is admitting that its party probably should have perished sometime in the 1970s. They deceived the American people into letting them remain. Prior to giving the people a voice in the nomination process, the DNC selected the Democratic nominee internally, the result of which was what provoked the 1968 riots in the first place.