DNC protests devolve into farce
For a while, I couldn’t find a single protester outside the convention, much less a Chicago seven.
Then came Kamala Harris — and the protest fizzled.
Organizers anticipated there would be 30,000 to 40,000 protesters on hand for Monday’s kickoff. But only a few thousand showed up; police estimated 3,500.
“There were more reporters than protesters,” observed Bennett Weiss. He was there selling Gaza-related buttons, including one that, he said, describes himself: “Self-Ambivalent Jew Against Zionism.”
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A few hours later, we knew. Only 100 people attended a protest march on the DNC by the “Poor People’s Army,” and that was after they delayed the start by 90 minutes. With Green Party candidate Jill Stein in attendance, their announced intention was to make “citizen’s arrests” of Democrats attending the convention and to charge them with “crimes against humanity.”
😂
A similarly incompetent demonstration unfolded in the arena while Biden spoke Monday night. A few demonstrators toward the back raised their telltale “Jill” signs — for Stein — and a banner announcing “Stop Arming Israel” in Palestinian colors. ...
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Like others I spoke to, [Jill] Zipin [Pa. delegate] believes that Harris’s candidacy has taken the air out of the Gaza protest movement by unifying Democrats. “With her at the top of the ticket, Democrats are like, ‘We’re gonna win this and no one’s gonna stop us.’”
...walking all around the United Center security perimeter on Tuesday, I couldn’t find a single protester, much less a Chicago seven.
Instead, in Union Park, epicenter of the week’s protests, I found a dog fetching a ball and 18 cops lounging on benches in the shade, their bikes parked in a line. I asked how the protests were going.
“Just the birds and the bees,” remarked one.
After my fruitless search for a protester...
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If the whole world was watching, they were seeing a once-powerful protest movement devolve into buffoonery.