Every U.S. election is called ‘most historic,’ but this one takes the cake

The political season has been chaotic in America. History itself descended upon the race for the presidency and shattered all hyperbole into superficial squawking. 

It is hard to overstate what has taken place in the past five weeks. The sitting leader of the free world, President Joe Biden, before billions of people and without any ability to mitigate otherwise, exposed his clear unfitness to run the most powerful country and military force in the history of humanity.

For nearly a month, the representatives of Biden’s party have been engaged in a kabuki theater, trying to first convince Americans to disbelieve, then finally disregard what they saw on a national debate. 

The ruse has not worked. A Democratic Party Convention in Chicago beckons. Until Saturday, the only question on the minds of inside-ball political viewers was which Chicago would show up: 1944 or 1968? 

The ’44 convention, in the throws of World War II, had Democratic Party bosses facing a massive dilemma: Their president was dying, and not interested in stepping down. Who would be vice president went from being a backup to a ramp-up to the near certainty of the Oval Office, and the smoke-filled rooms knew it.

That’s how America got Harry Truman, over a rancorous floor fight, as the bottom of the ticket in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fourth, and final, run for the White House. 

It was a prescient move. FDR did not last a year, dying in Warm Springs, Georgia at the age of 63. Truman had to step up to wind down the war effort, ramp up the Cold War posture, throw Communist China back out of South Korea, and keep Europe from descending into anarchy.

We live in a world built by that convention. 

Then there was the spring and summer of 1968. President Lyndon Johnson abdicated his privilege to run for re-election as the Democratic Party’s standard bearer, convulsing the national election into chaos. Rev. Martin Luther King was felled by bullets in Memphis. In the middle of a contentious primary, the new Democratic front-runner, Robert Kennedy, was also assassinated by a gunman, just like King, and like his brother, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had been assassinated nearly five years earlier. 

Chicago in 1968 became a warzone, with protesters objecting to Vietnam on one end, and police of Mayor Daley battling them on the other side of the streets. While the city was up for grabs outside the convention, the Democratic Party tore itself apart over its contradictions in policy and pursuit of holding onto power. The convention ended, and its nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was considered a safe bet to take on Republican nominee Richard Nixon. Nixon told America to look at Chicago, and asked what it preferred: hippies in the parks, riots on the roads, disrespect abroad, or law and order? 

We know how the story ended.

The Democratic Party of 2024 seemed, until this week, to be see-sawing between these two historic reference points. Would the nation see President Joe Biden give up his party’s throne, deign to appoint a successor, or would he, crackled, misspoken and broken as he is, limp to the ballot box, hoping disdain for the alternative was enough to give him and his allies four more years of power. 

That was going to be the story of the summer, answering what would happen on the shores of Lake Michigan in August. 

Until Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Popping sounds that gun owners know very well rang out. A former president and current leading presidential contender went to the ground in front of thousands of supporters and millions of viewers around the world, almost instantaneously followed by Secret Service agents.

Donald Trump emerged from that throng, defiant, blood smeared, and still managing to calm a crowd that elsewhere in America might have descended into chaos. He made a fist and spoke to the crowd, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

To be very clear, since many in the press corps have a problem for some reason doing so, it is important to state the obvious: Donald Trump, a past President of the United States who could very well return to running the country, evaded an assassin’s bullets by fractions of an inch. A deliberate attempt was made to kill someone who has and may continue to lead America. This has not happened in generations. 

History also trails President Trump to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week. Another former president, also from New York, also running to regain the office, also considered a dangerous populist by the elites yet beloved by the common people, was struck by a bullet intended to silence him. Like President Trump, Theodore Roosevelt, the older cousin to FDR, in 1912 responded with élan, continuing to speak even after being hit, and nearly dying. His courage was such that even his most hated opponents had to acknowledge President Theodore Roosevelt’s energy. 

Republicans are now gathered to formally nominate their choice for November. Butler has changed everything. The contrast was sharpened by the frailty and confusion of Biden and dissonance of the Democratic Party. Now, the Republican Party is not just an alternative to weakness, it is a party with a leader who has survived attempted assassination and is roaring. 

Every, single, election in living memory has been categorized as “historic.” There may be truth in each one of those labels. But this year takes the cake. Americans, as members of the oldest and most continuous democratic republic on earth, do not get to sit on the sidelines. In Asia, in Latin America, in Africa, and even in Europe, billions of people and their leaders, many of whom would love to do us harm, are waiting to see what happens next. We cannot afford to ignore that reality. 

The hippies in Chicago said one thing right in 1968: The whole world is watching. And it’s watching us. Don’t forget it.

Suzanne Downing founded Must Read Alaska in 2015 and is the current editor.