Dispatches From Chicago: Protesters Are Baffled They Can’t Make It On DNC Stage After They Rally to #ShutItDown

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CHICAGO – On the third day of the Democratic National Committee’s convention, an academic from Berkley, Calif., Hatem Bazian, quietly walked alone, mostly unnoticed, a smile on his face, in jeans, Adidas sneakers, jacket and keffiyeh scarf, as he took photos on his cell phone of a sea of about 1,000 protestors leaving Union Park on the city’s West Side and stopping on W. Maypole Avenue in front of Park No. 578.

For Bazian, a Palestinian American born in the city of Nablus in today’s West Bank, the protests and riots of this past week against the DNC – and the campus encampments, hashtag campaigns and boycotts over the past nine months – are the manifestation of a decades-long campaign to destroy the state of Israel, since arriving in San Francisco as a graduate student.

He had just railed against the Democrats, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris with a banner behind him, demanding the land of Israel “from the river to the sea” and warning ominously about keeping Americans from voting for the Democratic nominee: “Harris, in November, we’ll remember! 

But something has become clear on the streets of Chicago. This intersectional movement that coined the smears of #GenocideJoe may have won battles on college campuses, maybe helping to drive unpopularity against Biden, but, as they turn their rage on their new target – Harris – a darling of progressive politics whom they have coined #KillerKamala, they seem to have lost the war to win hearts and minds.

After railing against the DNC for months, carrying signs that say “Shut the DNC Down,” aligning with self-declared communists, burning the U.S. and Israeli flags and contaminating the breakfast of Democratic delegates at the Fairmont Hotel with maggots, the anti-Israel activists are now baffled they couldn’t secure a slot for a Palestinian speaker during the DNC convention. 

Their righteous indignation has turned into something psychologists call impotent rage.

“Impotent rage is a term used to describe anger that is intense but essentially powerless to bring about desired change,” explains psychologist Orli Peter, founder of the Israel Healing Initiative, a nonprofit started after the Oct. 7 attacks to bring healing from trauma to victims of terrorism, including Palestinian. 

When this rage is expressed through extreme demands, like the destruction of the state of Israel, as marchers declared, moving past elderly residents standing outside the McCrory Senior Apartments on W Washington Boulevard, it can alienate potential allies who might otherwise be sympathetic to their cause.

That’s not to say the anti-Israel activists will stop. In fact, it seems they are even more determined to persist, with more trouble expected on the streets of Chicago tonight as Harris accepts the Democratic nomination.

In front of Park No. 578, local attorney-activist Tarek Khalil, a board member of American Muslims for Palestine, looked out from behind his sunglasses at the signage of the United Center, peeking through the park’s trees and jungle gym, and shouted, literally and figuratively into the wind, to protest Biden for sending arms to Israel in its war against Hamas militants who murdered Israelis and others on Oct. 7th. 

“You are nothing but a hypocrite!” Khalil screamed, using one of the most damning terms in Islamic lexicon for a traitor. The word in Arabic is munafiq. 

In cue, the crowd responded: “Shame! Shame! Shame!” 

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” they continued.

With membership in groups from Code Pink to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the protestors marched behind a banner for the main sponsor of the day’s protests: the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, which includes two groups – the controversial American Muslims for Palestine and Students for Justice in Palestine – that Bazian cofounded. 

Bazian is close with the leaders of the coalition’s other groups: the Chicago Islamic Center, the Islamic Community Center of Illinois, the Mosque Foundation, the Palestinian American Community Center, the Palestinian American Council and U.S. Palestinian Community Network.

To understand the network of anti-Israel groups that has coalesced behind the #MarchOnDNC2024 campaign, fomenting anti-Semitism and hate toward the United States and the West, I created a Malign Foreign Influence Index that tracks the ideologies of the groups and their allegiances to socialist governments in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, among others.

With the march that stopped in front of Park No. 578, the numbers have now increased. The index now totals 242 organizations, of which 34 are self-described socialists, 166 are socialist-adjacent or pro-socialist and 42 organizations are Muslim, Arab or Palestinian.

The demand for the destruction of the state of Israel is seen as extreme and unattainable by many, leading to a lack of credibility in broader international discussions. This could be characterized as a form of “impotent rage,” a term used to describe anger that is intense but ultimately powerless to bring about the desired change. When this rage is expressed through extreme demands, it can alienate potential allies who might otherwise be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

This impotent rage has led to the emergence of a real cottage industry of protest porn, a term that refers to the use of protest imagery and actions for shock value or emotional manipulation rather than to effect meaningful change. In one mass-produced image, the protestors carried signs with the images of Biden, Harris and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with red laser beams for eyes and the un-nuanced, shaming message: “Democrats fund the genocide of Palestinians.”

Then, as the march resumed after stopping at Park No. 578, a young Palestinian American woman threw a plastic bottle of water at a police officer at the N. Damen Avenue “L” stop and hurled a slur at him, leading to police officers getting into a tussle with her, as marchers ran to the windows of the station and shouted: “Let her go! Let her go!” 

Enraged, one of them banged so hard on the window, as other protestors restrained him. 

Police didn’t have any intention of arresting her and, indeed, “let her go.”

As the march ended, returning to Union Park, a young man, Ali, 19, masked with a black-and-white keffiyeh scarf, skipped up the steps to the Ashland Avenue “L” transit stop and held a Palestinian flag over the bridge to the eyes of photographers below on Ashland Avenue. Police wrestled with him, the flag pole a danger presumably to the crowds below if it fell, and community members urged him to pull back. He did, and, returning to his friends, giving him high-fives, he told me why the moment was important to him: “It’s nice to see the Palestinian flag raised high.” A young girl, just hip-high, hugged his legs later, as he related the story to family and friends.

With even the best of intentions, throwing water bottles at police officers, waving flags on public infrastructure, burning flags and polluting food with maggots, end up being more performative than substantive. These acts may garner attention on social media, all of these actions this week winning viral moments. but they often lack the strategic focus needed to create lasting political impact.

Psychologists like Peter describe these actions as thrill-seeking, even narcissistic, behavior, where individuals engage in dramatic acts for the immediate emotional payoff rather than for long-term change. This can be harmful, especially when young people are drawn into these actions, contributing to a broader mental health crisis. The constant engagement in high-stress, performative activism can lead to burnout and exacerbate existing mental health issues, particularly in vulnerable groups. 

The narcissistic aspect of these actions can be seen in the way that some activists prioritize their own emotional expression over effective persuasion. Narcissism, in this context, is the focus on self-gratification and the need for validation, rather than on building a persuasive argument that could sway others to their cause.

In classical rhetoric, persuasion relies on three pillars: ethos (credibility), logos (logic) and pathos (emotional appeal). The tactics exhibited this past week fail on all three counts. 

Actions, like throwing water bottles, adding maggots to food and burning flags and creating shock-value hashtags like #KillerKamala, undermine the ethos, or credibility, of the movement, making it difficult for broader audiences to take their concerns seriously.

Demands like the destruction of a nation-state — Israel – and chants like “Genocide Joe” do not logically advance the Palestinian cause. Instead, they create a chaotic image that detracts from reasoned arguments. 

Finally, while these tactics might stir strong emotions, or pathos, among a small group of people, they alienate others who might otherwise be sympathetic to the cause. Insults and extreme rhetoric do not build bridges. They burn them.

The impotent rage is fierce. Today, again, cameras pointed at them, the protestors will be demanding attention from the DNC while simultaneously insulting the organization and threatening to withhold their votes. This contradiction — demanding a platform while refusing to engage constructively — undermines their position, and the logos of their argument.

Impotent rage manifests as a self-destructive cycle where anger is expressed in ways that sabotage the very goals the protesters claim to pursue. Instead of persuading the DNC to take their concerns seriously, they have increasingly become  dismissed this week as fringe or unreasonable, mocking even the delegates who covered their ears at their super-loud reading of the names of Palestinans who have died in the war in Gaza.

By failing to manifest the principles of ethos, logos and pathos, the activists this week have alienated potential allies and undermined their own goals. Instead of advancing their cause, they may be driving it further away from the mainstream acceptance they need to achieve meaningful change.

But they are achieving something that may also be in their end-goals: chaos and strife on the streets of America. And, as Harris heads to the United Center, protestors from #MarchOnDNC2024 return for another protest at Union Park, the chant to #ShutItDown sure to again echo in the wind.

Asra Q. Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and the author of a book, “Woke Army: The Red-Green Alliance That Is Undermining America’s Freedom.” She is a founder of the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative that is building the Malign Foreign Influence Index, examining the groups fomenting anti-Semitism. She has an MA in international communications, with a speciality in the study of propaganda. She can be reached at asra@asranomani.com and @AsraNomani.