Chris Wallace on Wednesday contracted the historically fraught 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where anti- Vietnam war protestors clashed with police, to today’s campus protests against the war in Gaza, saying that the tensions of the time were “nothing like what you’re seeing now between pro-Palestinian protestors and Jewish students and this whole thing of antisemitism.”
“On the surface, there are a a lot of similarities,” said Wallace, who was an intern covering the convention in 1968. “But the differences, it seems to me, are much significant.”
He pointed out that college kids who were protesting the Vietnam were “worried they’d be drafted and sent over. So they had a much more personal stake in Vietnam than what’s happening in Gaza.” In 1968 —the same tumultuous year that saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy — were also protesting to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, in light of the fact that many of the troops killed in Vietnam were younger than 21.
Host Jake Tapper asked Wallace if the protests on college campuses were “as divisive” 56 years ago.
Wallace replied, that, at the time, long before the war’s eventual end in 1975, “a lot of people didn’t particularly oppose the war or care all that much.” He added, “There was some tension. But nothing like what you’re seeing now between pro-Palestinian protestors and Jewish students and this whole thing of antisemitism. There was none of that kind of ugliness in 1968 that you see now in 2024.”
(It’s worth noting that some of the pro-Palestinian protestors are Jewish students, including Jewish Students for Palestine at Washington University.)
Tapper also asked if this year’s Democratic National Convention, which will be held again in Chicago in August, will be as violent as in 1968.
Wallace said he expected things to be quieter, based on the difference between the city’s two mayors at the two points in history.
“Mayor Richard J.D. Daley… was very much a supporter of the war. He was spoiling for a fight with the protestors and so were the Chicago police. They mayor now is Brandon Johnson, who’s a liberal, a union organizer, a public school teacher and he’s all about deescalation,” said Wallace. “You didn’t hear a lot about deescalation in 1968.”
Wallace also said that mood outside the convention depends on what’s happening in Gaza. “If there’s a ceasefire, if some humanitarian aid is getting through, if the hostages have been released, that’s one scenario and I think a much less charged scenario,” he said.
“But if in August of 2024, the Israelis are attacking Rafah, there’s a humanitarian bloodbath going on, I think it will be very highly charged and I think you’ll see a lot of anger in the streets of Chicago,” he concluced.
Wallace: Well, again, there was some and they were people who weren’t, at that point, in 1968, a lot of people who didn’t particularly oppose the war or care all that much. And there was ROTC. There was some tension. But nothig like what you’re seeing now between pro-Palestinian protestors and Jewish students and this whole thing of antisemitism. There was none of that kind of ugliness in 1968 that you see now in 2024.
