The worst year in modern American history was unquestionably 1968, which in its first six months included the Tet Offensive, LBJ’s surprise announcement that he would not seek re-election, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the subsequent riots that destroyed the cores of many American cities including, fatally, Detroit; and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles.
Still to come were the riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago, the “Black Power” salutes by American athletes at the Olympics in Mexico City, Richard Nixon’s razor-thin victory over Hubert Humphrey in an election that saw a third-party candidate, George Wallace (a former racist Democrat) garner 13.5% of the popular vote as he ran against the “pointy-headed intellectuals” in Washington, and widespread student protests against the military draft.
Which brings us to 2016.
The pace of recent events, from the outre presidential election, the “exoneration” of career criminal Hillary Clinton by the FBI, and the shooting of multiple police officers in Dallas during a “Black Lives Matter” protest, is reminiscent of ’68; the country barely had time to process one enormity when the next once occurred.
by Michael Walsh