Measuring this historic moment: Is it a 1968, Redux?

America is sleepwalking into a political collision that is now all but inevitable: an electoral rematch of Joe Biden v. Donald Trump.

With the results of the presidential primary’s Super Tuesday now in, the national election is fully on. Trump offered a rambling list of grievances in a victory speech Tuesday night as he all but clinched the Republican nomination. Despite his big win and sweeping mandate in the Republican Party, Trump offered a dark vision of America as a “third world country” when it comes to its borders and its elections.

And on Thursday night Biden delivered a spirited State of the Union address sounding an alarm that democracy is under attack at home and abroad, opening what was in essence a campaign speech with a reference to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s warning to Congress on the eve of World War II that the rise of fascism was “no ordinary moment in history,” as “freedom and democracy were under attack in the world.” Biden said he wanted “to wake up this Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either.”

“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today,” Biden added.

The competing visions could not be more stark, reflecting the fact that the divisions in the country are deeper than they have been in at least a generation. Biden went all the way back to the Civil War. So how do we measure this moment in history? How do we go beyond campaign rhetoric and give it context?

It is safe to say that America hasn't been this fractured since 1968. And that leaves me wondering if this current moment in American politics and the Summer of party conventions is 1968, Redux?

Back then, the forces tearing the country apart were the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the draft as well as the struggle for civil rights and the slow pace of the march toward equality. The divisions had spurred violence, including the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. It was a time of dramatic upheaval but set against a backdrop of solid prosperity for the middle class and, notably, the challenging questions of the day were framed by robust and trusted journalism. CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite was named “the most trusted man in America” in a national poll.

The polarization now is different. Yes, there is a war in Gaza that has caused bitter divisions, but there is no draft of young Americans to fight in that war. Yes, there is a fateful war in Ukraine, but no U.S. military units are serving there. The struggle now is more around immigration and women's reproductive rights amid a smoldering reflection on injustices in civil rights that remain unresolved. Now it is a time of dread set against an age of inequity and widespread anxiety in the economy. Significantly, these struggles are framed by a weakened media amid a digital revolution powered by algorithms that foster division. Trust in journalism is at an all-time low.

So there are profound differences in the context in which the 2024 presidential election is unfolding. But, at least on the surface, the similarities are worth pondering.

It’s a perplexing puzzle to try to figure out how to constructively explore the history of 1968 to help us better understand 2024. I called my friend Geoff Cowan, who is a leading journalist, intellectual, non-profit executive and civil rights activist, who was there in Chicago in 1968 working to reform the process to be more democratic. I figured there is no one who could offer more insight than him. We talked for a long time on the phone and in the end, he saw little productive comparisons. Instead, he shared a stark vision that America is struggling to save its democracy now, just as it was back in 1968.

Here is what Cowan had to say:

“We are in neither the best of times nor the worst of times, but we are in both. We always have a struggle …And I do worry about confidence in the institutions, whether it is the press, the Congress or the courts. It is not just the presidency, but there is a deep lack of confidence in the institutions. In 1968, we were in the struggle to make the institutions of democracy work. We had a lot of skepticism but we were committed to trying to make things better.”

Read the full column here