The protests on the first day of the Democratic convention did not live up to either fears or hopes that they would be a repeat of the chaos at the Chicago convention in 1968. That year was also the dawn of televised live events, the moment when the now-familiar protest chant originated: “The whole world is watching.”
On Monday I watched as a small group of protesters who broke away from the bigger, peaceful main march repeated the chant “The whole world is watching” as some of them removed a section of the fence that surrounded the main event arena almost half a mile away. A few burst through the opening into the row of police officers who outnumbered them at least 20 to one. Four were arrested.
But who was watching?
The small number of disruptive protesters certainly had an audience, but perhaps not the one they hoped for. The event was swarmed by a gaggle of right-wing live-streamers and social media influencers in search of “content” that would help them portray the convention — and the city of Chicago — as descending into chaos.
I watched as a man in a pink suit and his camera operator constantly jostled for position to record moments with the most cops. I quickly found their account online, and it was just what you would expect.
“The liberals will rage if you followed and shared this post,” they wrote as they posted 30-second snippets of the demonstrators. “The far left are taking over the DNC and breaking down all the barriers.”
But the problem was that after the initial few arrests, not that much was happening besides occasional heckling and a few halfhearted attempts at removing another section of the fence.
So, many of their videos didn’t show much, just a bunch of people milling in front of the now-replaced fence section.
What to do when the content showing chaos and communism taking over Chicago isn’t there?
Well, that’s what creativity is for, I suppose, and there were inevitably those who sought the opportunity. In another corner, for example, “The Rudy Giuliani Show on America’s Mayor,” a YouTube show streaming live from the convention, featured its reporter, Ted Goodman, approaching protesters with provocative questions and Giuliani commenting on how terrible it all was.
At one point, a man from the protesters’ side walked up to Goodman holding up his phone, challenging him on what he was doing.
“We’re live on TV,” Goodman said, to which the protester responded, “Well, I’m live on TikTok.” The match was made.
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“The Democrat Party of today has a communist problem,” Goodman said in a correspondent’s voice, as Giuliani watched approvingly.
But then came the snag. “So my phone is running low, so I’m going to go charge for a bit,” Goodman said. Nodding in approval, Giuliani responded, “Yeah, that was pretty exciting, you get back to us.”
On YouTube, they had about 6,000 people watching, with about 35,000 views on X. Have to keep feeding the beast.