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50 Years Ago–the Start of Political Polarization

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USS Pueblo (AGER-2) off San Diego, 19 Oct 1967, was captured by North Korea on 23 January 1968. The ship is still held by North Korea today, currently moored in the Taedong River in Pyongyang and used as a museum ship. (Photo Credit: Courtesy of US Navy)

Happy 50th Anniversary 1968

“The modern era of American politics—defined by polarization and nonstop intensity—began with the cataclysmic events of 1968,” writes Daniel Henninger in the WSJ. “Nineteen sixty-eight was one of the greatest anni horribiles ever to happen inside the U.S., producing war, assassinations and riots.”

  • January 23, The USS Pueblo and its 82 survivors are captured and taken hostage by North Korea.
  • January 30, North Vietnam launches the notorious Tet Offensive, including an invasion of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.
  • March 12, Minnesota’s Democratic Sen. Eugene McCarthy comes within a few hundred votes in the New Hampshire primary of upsetting President Lyndon B. Johnson. Within three weeks, Johnson announces he will not seek his party’s presidential nomination.
  • April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis. Urban riots break out across the U.S.
  • April 23: Students occupy offices at Columbia University until police storm the building a week later.
  • June 3: Andy Warhol is shot in New York by Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto, or “Society for Cutting Up Men.”
  • June 5, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated at a Los Angeles hotel.
  • August 8, Republicans nominate Richard Nixon.
  • August 10, Richard and Deborah marry, St. Mary’s Church, Newport, RI.
  • Two weeks later, the Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia.
  • In late summer during the Democratic Convention in Chicago, police fight a pitched battle with antiwar protesters in Grant Park.
  • In October, at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise gloved fists as a black-power salute during a medal ceremony.
  • November 5, Nixon defeats Hubert Humphrey and a third-party populist, former and future Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who in the spirit of the times told a group of antiwar protesters: “I was killing fascists when you punks were in diapers.”

Throw on top this mix:

  • Vietnam–the “living room war”
  • Pot and the Pill
  • Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Stones, “Jumping Jack Flash;” James Brown, “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud;” Steppenwolf “Born to Be Wild;” The Beatles, “Hey Jude;” Otis Redding “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay;” Janis Joplin “Piece of My Heart” Simon and Garfunkel, “Scarborough Fair.”

Three gentlemen graduated in 1968, notes DH: Bill Clinton (Georgetown), George W. Bush (Yale) and Donald J. Trump (Penn).

The last major happening in 1968 was Apollo 8 orbiting the moon 10 times on December 24. Astronaut Jim Lovell announced to earth, “Houston, please be informed, there is a Santa Claus.”

“The music, mayhem and merriment were inseparable. It was a year in which the idea of inhibition died. It hasn’t returned and likely never will,” writes Daniel Henninger.

Read more here.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, and practicing yoga.