Pro-Palestine protesters have plans for the Democratic Convention—but they’re not what leading Democrats reportedly fear.
Originally published by LA Progressive
Before Democrats started freaking out about Joe Biden’s age and cognitive decline, party leaders began stressing over potential protester violence outside the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this coming August 19-22 in Chicago. New York Times reporter Jeremy W. Peters was among the first to notice, when he described Democrats’ “nightmare scenario” where “protesters disrupt their convention…clash with police [and] chaos seems to take hold.” Such scenario would upset Democrats’ electoral message that (with or without Biden) they stand for normal and orderly governance against Trump’s antidemocratic and tumultuous rule.I will restrain myself by not dwelling on the irony of Democrats’ fears of violence outside their convention compared to the violence they (along with Republicans) have been materially and politically supporting in Gaza. But, no question, violence could occur outside the DNC. Still, to anyone familiar with what protesters are actually planning, Democrats’ fears appear rooted not in reality but in stereotypes of protesters as uniquely inclined to violence. Here is what I can tell you, after several months of taking part in the Coalition to March on the DNC 2024.
First and foremost, the Coalition is planning to get its demands heard. Last April when over 450 individuals from over 75 organizations met in Chicago, they united behind a People’s Agenda that included support not for war, but for healthcare, housing and the environment; for defense of immigrant, LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights; and for community control of police and an end to police crimes. Participants in the Chicago meeting were most fired up, however, by Israel’s relentless occupation of Palestinian land and slaughter in Gaza. As prominent coalition member Joe Iosbaker said to me, “All of us are heartbroken and horrified by the carnage in Gaza that we see every day on social media.” And the Coalition’s website declares that the focus of this year’s DNC protest will be justice for Palestine.
The Coalition is planning large demonstrations that nobody, certainly not the DNC, will be able to ignore. To pull into the Chicago streets 40,000 or more protesters from all over the country, the Coalition is doing everything it can to ensure a “family friendly” march, where protesters of all ages and all physical conditions can feel secure, and inspired to return to the streets in the future. As Hatem Abudayyeh, chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and a Coalition spokesperson, explained to me: “the major social changes that we are after will come about neither through violent protests nor by fleeting actions, regardless how dramatic, but only through sustained mass organizing spanning generations. We want everyone to come out at the DNC and to keep coming out after the DNC until our demands are met.”
The Coalition is planning a family friendly march also because it expects large-scale participation by local Arab and Palestinian communities. Greater Chicago alone is home to some 100,000 residents of Arab descent, and many have been flooding the city every week since October to protest the genocide in Gaza. Whole families, from babies to grandparents, have frequently attended these demonstrations. An even greater number of families are expected to protest at the DNC and the Coalition wants to keep them safe.
The Coalition is taking all the customary precautions by arranging for National Lawyer Guild monitors, training large numbers of marshals and medics, and designating police liaisons. Perhaps most revealing of the Coalition’s dedication to a family friendly march is something I have witnessed several times: When someone in a meeting to prepare for the DNC suggests a slogan or an activity that is even minimally at odds with the requirements of a family friendly event, other participants immediately remind them of the overriding commitment to a march on the DNC that will inspire everyone to continue with the long-term struggle—a march that is large and demanding, but always family friendly.
As with any mass demonstration, groups with different agendas or tactics are likely to show up. If and when this happens, the Coalition plans to shield its own activities from disruption by negotiating using the St. Paul Principles. Protesters have used these widely for several years, and they allow groups to engage in different or disruptive sorts of protest actions, but to do so separated from each other by time and space. The St. Paul Principles encourage protesters to tolerate different approaches to protesting, but to not disrupt the activities of other groups, and, for example, to “keep ‘family-friendly spaces’ separate from those with risk of arrest.”
Finally, the Coalition aims to optimize chances for a family friendly march by obtaining a permit. Coalition members are committed to marching with or without a permit, but they seek a permit to help inhibit the Chicago Police Department (CPD) from engaging in anything like the gross misconduct it displayed at the DNC in 1968, when it unleashed a planned assault on protesters in what a federal commission of the time called a “police riot.” For months, the city has offered a permit to march four miles away, but has denied a permit to march near the site of this year’s DNC. In response, the Coalition is suing in federal court for the right, consistent with recent constitutional case law, to march within “sight and sound” of the DNC. Affiliated lawyers are confident that the Coalition will win, but the struggle to obtain a permit continues.
Of course, even though a permit might help curb police violence, it cannot fully guarantee against it. In response to questions about the CPD’s mass arrest policy, Superintendent Larry Snelling recently proclaimed that “peaceful protest does not necessarily mean that someone is exercising their First Amendment rights.” Snelling’s statement may have portended something ominous, or it may have been intended simply to scare off potential protesters. To me, recent history suggests the latter. For the CPD has made relatively few arrests at the several college encampments and over forty large pro-Palestine demonstrations in Chicago since last October.
Coalition plans show that the potential for violence and chaos outside this year’s DNC is much less than leading Democrats reportedly fear. Still, the question of how the CPD is going to behave remains open. My suggestion for leading Democrats, therefore, is that, as they try to manage their Biden problem, they do all that they can to ensure that Superintendent Snelling and the CPD, as well as all the other surveillance and policing forces that will be involved, respect the First Amendment rights of speech, petition and peaceable assembly that the vast majority of protesters from around the country will soon be exercising as they march on the DNC.
