Donald Trump’s GOP Convention Will Be Nuts. But at Least It Won’t Be Known as “the Klanbake.”

Probably.

Pigasus the pig, the Yippies' presidential candidate in 1968Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images

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Steak magnate Donald Trump emerged from the Republican primary with just enough delegates to stave off a potential floor fight in Cleveland this week. While that’s bad news for what’s left of the GOP’s #NeverTrump contingent, the real loser may be political junkies, who thought they’d finally see the ivory-billed woodpecker of American politics—the brokered convention. Instead, they’ll have to settle for reliving the chaos of years past.

1836: The Anti-Masonic Party may have invented the political nominating convention, but it certainly didn’t perfect it; the party’s second effort ends without a presidential nominee amid fears that front-runner William Henry Harrison does not actually oppose Freemasonry in all cases.

1839: The first contested convention ends with the first instance of candidate-on-candidate violence. Henry Clay assaults war hero Winfield Scott—who was deep in a game of whist—after hearing that his rival cut a deal to hand the Whig nomination to Harrison. Clay is dragged from the room. Scott challenges him to a duel.

1860: The gold standard of dysfunction. Southern delegates walk out of the Democratic convention in Charleston, South Carolina, over slavery. They bolt again when the party holds a do-over in Baltimore two months later. Mirroring the schism nationwide, the party goes into November with two nominees.

1912: Undeterred by a violent primary campaign (delegates in Missouri were chosen by voters swinging baseball bats), ex-President Theodore Roosevelt promises to use “roughhouse tactics” to seize the Republican nomination from “fathead” President William Howard Taft. Roosevelt breaks with tradition by showing up in Chicago, but after losing a key procedural vote—and amid allegations of bribery on both sides—he abandons his plan to “terrorize” the convention there. Instead, he and delegates walk out and form their own party.

Theodore Roosevelt at what appears to be the first Progressive Party Convention Library of Congress

1920: Ohio Gov. Warren G. Harding enters the phrase “smoke-filled room” into the political lexicon when Republican power brokers huddle in Room 404 of Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel to pick a compromise candidate. Harding wins on the 10th ballot.

The opening of the 1920 Republican National Convention in Chicago AP Photo

1924: Known as “the Klanbake,” the longest convention in history (16 days) pits the Ku Klux Klan-backed William Gibbs McAdoo against New York’s Catholic governor, Al Smith, in Manhattan. After a plank condemning the Klan is nixed from the platform, 20,000 Klansmen—including some delegates—celebrate in New Jersey by burning a cross and throwing baseballs at an effigy of Smith.

Gov. Alfred E. Smith received a 90-minute ovation at the 1924 Democratic Convention AP Photo

1964: New York’s Republican governor, Nelson Rockefeller, is booed unmercifully at San Francisco’s Cow Palace when he proposes an amendment condemning the “extremism” of the KKK and the John Birch Society. Meanwhile, supporters of the eventual nominee, Barry Goldwater, harass reporters, hurling trash (and racial slurs) at two African American journalists. The “Woodstock of the Right” ushers in a conservative revolution and an electoral disaster. Sound familiar?

Susan Goldwater promoting the candidacy of her husband, Barry Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos

1968: Some 10,000 anti-war protesters clash with more than 20,000 police officers and National Guardsmen outside the Democratic convention in Chicago. The violence spills into the convention hall, where CBS News’ Dan Rather is assaulted by the police on air. Protesters from the Youth International Party—the Yippies—hold a shadow convention to nominate their own presidential candidate, a 145-pound pig named Pigasus.

1976: With President Gerald Ford 24 delegates shy of victory in Kansas City, Ronald Reagan bets the house on a risky move—he picks a running mate. Reagan’s choice of moderate Pennsylvania Sen. Richard Schweiker blows up in his face when the party’s right wing threatens a revolt. Although Ford wins (by a hair) on the first ballot, Reagan has the last laugh: His concession speech overshadows the nominee and sets the stage for his conservative revival four years later.

Ronald Reagan and his running mate, Sen. Richard Schweiker, at the 1976 GOP convention AP Photo

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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