Lake: It’s 1968 all over again, the year that left two leaders dead and shattered our politics

By Eli Lake | Commentary, The Free Press

For months now, the parallels between 2024 and 1968 have seemed eerie. The Democratic convention is once again in Chicago this August, as it was 56 years ago. The Democratic incumbent, once again, is despised by his left-wing base and seems out of touch with voters. College campuses are once again aflame over a foreign war.

And yet despite these echoes, anyone familiar with the horrors of 1968 would have thought things were much worse in that year of street battles and riots than today. Until Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Yesterday evening, an assassin’s bullet came a hair’s breadth away from killing the Republican nominee and front-runner in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump. Instead, the bullet grazed his ear, setting the stage for an iconic photo of Trump raising his fist as his Secret Service detail took him off the stage.

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