CLEVELAND — Live long enough and be watchful and you will understand how sometimes history repeats itself.
"Nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy — that includes personal ambition," President Joe Biden said from the Oval Office Wednesday night. "So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation."
Biden's decision not to run again for the presidency sounded like an echo of 1968, when Lyndon B. Johnson — under enormous political and social pressure because of an unpopular war in Vietnam — made this announcement:
"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."
Johnson's '68 announcement was to a politically divided United States. It is in a similarly divided America today that President Biden steps aside from what had been another presidential run.
1968 and 2024 are "split-screen" moments divided by 56 years. Among them, wars.
In 1968, the long war in Vietnam, where tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were dying amid some of the fiercest fighting. A Vietnam War which would go on for several more years, came home to Americans with widespread protests.
In 2024, the war in Ukraine, against an invading Russia, continues with the U.S. supplying huge amounts of military armaments to Ukraine. And with the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza. Americans are deeply divided over whether the U.S. should supply Israel with armaments.
Both '68 and '24 have heard gunfire as leaders were caught in gunmen's crosshairs. Former President Donald Trump was wounded on camera by a would-be assassin as he campaigned for the presidency.
In '68, former U.S. Attorney General and sitting U.S. Senator, Robert F. Kennedy — campaigning for the presidency — was shot and killed. The camera was there, too. That same 1968 saw civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.
History will look back upon 2024 as it does of 1968. Both times witnessed different visions of what America could be, or should be.
Add to that, both 1968 and 2024 go down as Olympic years. This year's Summer Games in Paris, France. 1968's Winter Olympics — when they were still held in the same year as the Summer Games — were also in France, in the city of Grenoble.
1968 was a tumultuous time, marking an inflection point in American history. The year is still studied, and will be for generations, for it marked a turning point in American society with contradictions that have yet to be resolved.
Seven months into 2024, it appears this year is headed in that same direction.