Fast forward to 2024, and we have an increasingly unpopular war in Gaza that is enthusiastically supported by the current Democratic president, Joe Biden. The Democratic party apparatus is striving to avoid any embarrassing near losses in the primaries by downplaying the contests and refusing to hold debates with other candidates. It’s arguably the least democratic process the party has held since 1968 (which had ended up leading to reform).
It’s impossible to know what would have happened in 1968 if LBJ had reversed his position on Vietnam. He still would’ve had to deal with the Southern backlash against his Civil Rights legislation and white resentment of the urban race riots. If RFK had not been killed, he would faced the same challenges. But if Nixon had been denied, it’s a fair wager that the Vietnam War would have ended sooner, and certainly would not have included the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia that Nixon and Kissinger orchestrated, which was one of the most heinous war crimes of the century (in a century full of heinous war crimes).
This year is a similar inflection point.