Page is an American journalist, syndicated columnist, and senior member of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.
When a friend reminded me that it's almost time for the Democratic National Convention, I wanted to say, "That's OK, I'm good with the last one."
But, I didn't. I'm too much of a political junkie to ignore this level of political history while it's being made.
As a matter of historical importance, it's not the party that matters to me as much as the role these events play in making political history. But I also am a Chicagoan who cares about the city and the image it presents to the world.
As such, I felt great apprehension before the last Democratic convention in Chicago in 1996, especially in light of the fiasco that erupted during the party's convention in 1968.
Yes, the 1968 convention, in case you weren't around, was the one widely and unpleasantly remembered for violent clashes between police and protesters, a chaotic scene that set the party up for what became nominee Hubert Humphrey's loss in the fall to Republican Richard Nixon.
Fortunately, the 1996 convention came off well enough to be remembered less for the reasonably peaceful protests outside than for the sight of first lady Hillary Clinton, later the U.S. secretary of state, clapping along with other delegates doing the Macarena during an intermission.
Ah, talk about the politics of joy.
But I was sensing flashbacks to chaotic 1968 last week when about 40 people were arrested for blocking roads leading into O'Hare International Airport, one of the world's busiest, for more than an hour.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker later reassured the public that the city and state are ready to stop any disruption to the big event.
"Look, we believe in free speech, and we're going to allow people to protest," he told Dana Bash on "CNN Sunday Morning." "But the reality is we're going to make sure people have ingress and egress and that they're safe in our state."
Well, good luck, governor, and to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson too. Here's hoping our political leaders have learned some important lessons from our past convention experiences, including the missteps.
A special commission headed by Dan Walker, general counsel for Montgomery Ward who later would become Illinois governor, famously blamed the 1968 chaos in the streets on a "police riot." The report confirmed the widespread public impression that the Chicago police, in a classic Daley understatement, "overreacted." But it also pointed out the provocations they suffered, as well as examples of police showing proper restraint.
The success of the 1996 convention under Mayor Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J., showed how much the son and the city had learned from the mistakes of 1968. It's hard to remember now, because 1996 went so well, but there was palpable nervousness beforehand.
So it is in 2024. The reasons are different this time. In 1996, what caused the angst was the pressure of exorcising the demons of 1968. In 2024, what is prompting the worry is a new generation of activists and protesters using a level of aggression we haven't really seen since the late '60s. Once again, Chicago's 1968 demons have returned to fray our nerves. It's only the issues fueling the anger that have changed.
Brandon Johnson is about as far from Richard J. Daley in terms of ideology as a mayor can get. But he is likely to be confronted with similar quandaries over how much force to allow his police force to employ. A nervous city for now can only wait for August. It won't provide any comfort to him that Daley's reputation never recovered from the brutal scenes in Grant Park.
Chicago has been hosting party conventions since the Republican National Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The vast majority of those gatherings have reflected well on the city and pumped money into the local economy.
It's your turn now, Mayor Johnson. It's not that the whole world is watching, as the young protesters chanted in 1968. But a whole country will be.
(C)2024 Clarence Page. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.