The Most Controversial Moments Of The DNC
The Democratic National Convention sounds like it should be boring – but over the last 200 years, it's played host to some of the most dramatic scenes in American history. These are just a few of the most controversial moments ever seen at the DNC.
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00:00The Democratic National Convention sounds like it should be boring, but over the last
00:04200 years, it's played host to some of the most dramatic scenes in American history.
00:09These are just a few of the most controversial moments ever seen at the DNC.
00:15The very first Democratic National Convention was held in 1832 in Baltimore. During the
00:20convention, the brand-new party, rising from the ashes of the Democratic-Republican Party,
00:25very quickly nominated Andrew Jackson for a second term. Jackson had been president
00:30since 1829, with John C. Calhoun serving as his vice president. But Calhoun had fallen
00:35out of favor, due in large part to his support of the doctrine of nullification, a controversial
00:40political theory in which states could basically ignore federal laws they disagreed with.
00:45Jackson and his supporters were vehemently opposed to nullification. At the convention,
00:50the delegates, instead of nominating Calhoun, chose Martin Van Buren as Jackson's running
00:55mate. Calhoun ended up resigning as Jackson's vice president, becoming the first person
00:59to do so. He was then elected a U.S. senator for South Carolina, but his aspirations to
01:04one day be president were quashed. Van Buren, on the other hand, saw his political star
01:08ascend. He became the eighth U.S. president.
01:12In the spring of 1860, the Democrats held their convention in Charleston, South Carolina,
01:17but things didn't go well from the start. The delegates, mostly over the issue of slavery,
01:21were unable to nominate a candidate. Eventually, a number of Southern delegates walked out,
01:26and the convention ended without anyone being nominated. They tried again that summer, reconvening
01:31in Baltimore in June, but yet again, the Southerners walked out. The remaining delegates nominated
01:36Stephen Douglas. Meanwhile, these Southern Democrats held their own convention in Baltimore
01:40and nominated Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge, who was then serving as vice president under
01:45President James Buchanan and believed slavery should be decided by the states and not the
01:50federal government. This resulted in two Democratic candidates, each claiming to be
01:54the rightful nominee, and one of the most chaotic presidential elections in history.
01:59In the end, Abraham Lincoln, the first candidate for the new Republican Party, won the election,
02:04which prompted the Southern states to secede from the union, kicking off the Civil War.
02:10In a broiling hot summer in 1924, the Democratic National Convention convened at Manhattan's
02:15Madison Square Garden. In what would end up being the longest convention in U.S. history,
02:20it quickly became combative. Already by the second day, the spectators were spitting on
02:24the delegates, who angrily wrangled over candidates and issues that included Prohibition and the
02:29Ku Klux Klan. It dragged on for two weeks amid a bitter fight between New York Governor
02:34Al Smith and William G. McAdoo from California. Reporter Elmer Davis wrote in The New York
02:40Times,
02:41It was an inhuman spectacle. If the Democratic Convention were a fight, it would long ago
02:45have been stopped by the referee.
02:47Smith was anti-Prohibition and anti-Klan. McAdoo, while not a member of the white supremacist
02:53terrorist organization himself, had the backing of the KKK, whose reign of terror soared during
02:59the 1920s. McAdoo also wanted Prohibition to continue.
03:02Eventually, a dark horse candidate named John Davis rose to the fore as a compromise between
03:07the supporters of Smith and McAdoo. Davis lost resoundingly in the general election
03:12to Calvin Coolidge.
03:14In August 1968, the Chicago Police Department, under the autocratic mayor Richard Daley and
03:19backed by the National Guard and members of the U.S. Army, clashed with anti-Vietnam War
03:24protesters outside of the International Amphitheater where the Democratic National Convention was
03:29being held.
03:30In what would later be called a police riot, in an official Illinois state report, law
03:34enforcement violently attacked protesters and arrested hundreds of them. Judy Gumbo,
03:40a protester, recalled seeing police "...really roughing people up, doing terrible stuff to
03:44people."
03:45Inside the convention, delegates fought over platform positions related to the war, and
03:49in some instances, the fights turned physical. In the end, Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic
03:54nomination and lost to Richard M. Nixon in the general election. And the Chicago DNC
03:59became a watershed moment in U.S. politics.
04:03The Democratic National Convention is back in Chicago amid protests around another conflict.
04:08Several thousand people are in Chicago protesting Israel's ferocious military attack on Gaza
04:13that has left more than 40,000 Palestinian civilians dead. Many want an immediate, permanent
04:18ceasefire agreement and for the U.S. to stop supporting Israel with weapons of war.
04:23Besides protesters breaching the outer fence surrounding the United Center where the DNC
04:27is being held, inside the convention, protesters held up a banner reading,
04:31"'Stop Arming Israel.'"
04:33When President Joe Biden appeared at the convention in support of Vice President Kamala Harris,
04:37several pro-Palestinian delegates turned their backs on him in protest. Biden, a vocal supporter
04:43of Israel as president, admitted the protesters had a point during his speech at the convention.
04:48Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being
04:53killed on both sides.
04:57Leading up to the convention, the parallels to 1968 were hard not to notice. But will
05:01history repeat itself in Chicago in 2024? Only time will tell.