May 11, 2024
Smells Like ‘68: Foreboding Parallels for Democrats in 2024
By William Sullivan
This election season, there are many parallels to the election year of 1968 on display, and none of it bodes well for Democrats’ chances in November.
It didn’t work out for Democrats back then, certainly, with Republican Richard Nixon handily defeating Hubert Humphrey, and Republicans picking up a net five seats in both the Senate and the House, along with a net gain of five governorships.
Here are a few of these observed similarities.
Radical leftists are again eating their ownThe first parallel, which many have already noted, is that the Democratic National Convention (DNC) will be again held in Chicago in August of this year, as it was in a politically contentious 1968. Recent events signify that the city may again be witness to mass protests outside the DNC, just as when “tens of thousands of protestors swarmed the streets to rally against the Vietnam War and the political status quo” in 1968.
Pacifying those radicals without alienating the political center will be difficult. But this is the Faustian bargain that Democrats chose, then and now.
By 1968, there had been an explosion of outrage over American military defense of South Vietnam against the aggression of the communist North Vietnam. Escalation in this Cold War conflict had occurred over many presidencies, and as such, the communist-sympathizing activists on college campuses viewed this as a systemic result of the American political status quo.
Sen. Bernie Sanders recently argued that the Israel-Hamas conflict might become “Biden’s Vietnam.” Politically, he may be right. America is divided today on the conflict in the Middle East, and in a way that presents something of a catch-22 for Biden’s administration as it did for Democrats in 1968.
In December of 1967, 34% of polled Americans wanted to “get out” of Vietnam. 33% wanted a negotiated peace, while 26% wanted a total victory. This signifies a slight edge to public support for “full withdrawal” over “total victory” among the public, but that middle ground covers an awful lot of potential dispositions about that war.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/05/smells_like_68_foreboding_parallels_for_democrats_in_2024.html