Photo: 19680810 20 Anti-War March; author: David Wilson; CC BY 2.0 DEED Attribution 2.0 Generic
Politics repeats itself, and the presidential election of 1968 has returned as Biden’s nightmare. In April, student protests shut down in-person classes at Columbia and disrupted Yale, New York University, and Harvard, sparking many arrests.
The upcoming Democratic National Convention could face worse turmoil in Chicago, the same place where the Democrats held their 1968 convention amid anti-war riots that caused a bad impression with voters. Even Chicago’s very tough Mayor Richard J. Daley was unable to control the violent protests, which television cameras broadcast nationwide.
Today, with an emasculated police force and none of the law-and-order that ruled Chicago decades ago, the growing unrest could be disastrous for Biden’s reelection. Mass arrests, like those initiated by New York University during the April protests, will become necessary. These arrests will not play well with young voters whom Biden desperately needs.
There was a strong third-party candidate in 1968 just as today there is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Democrats are doing all they can to obstruct his access to ballots. The Biden Administration recently again denied RFK Jr.’s customary request for Secret Service protection, forcing his campaign to divert millions of dollars to spend on security.
More bad news for Biden arrived during the protests when the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition to review a ban in Texas on no-excuse mail-in voting by those under 65 years old. Ballot-box stuffing through the mails, with unverified signatures, is how Biden claimed victory in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in 2020, but the High Court just allowed states to rein in early voting abuse.
People say that we must learn history so we do not repeat it. Even if President Joe Biden took this advice, he seems to have forgotten all about 1968.
