History, right now: Echoes of 1968, and other American years

The streets were on fire as National Guard troops streamed into American cities. The shouts were soaked in anger and anguish: “We’re sick of it!”

There was dark talk of “radical agitators.” Violent outbursts and arrests piled up across the republic. The White House issued martial statements about law and order. On TV, footage of unrest and anger played on a continuous loop.

The voice from mission control was cool and calm as the rocket soared into the sky and towards space. “Stage One propulsion is nominal.”

It was the late 1960s. It is right now.

For Americans of a certain age — and for those mindful of the past — it is impossible to ignore the similarities between these past few days and some of the more unsettling moments from the 1960s. In particular 1968, a year marred by assassinations and violent social unrest.

And there are reasons to believe that 2020, not yet half done, may even surpass 1968 as one of American history’s most powerful social and political flashpoints.

From an impeachment trial to a devastating pandemic, from galloping unemployment to George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, all the threads are there, flowing together into a raging, muddied river that serves up unimaginable challenges.

“All these things are being woven together,” says historian Thurston Clarke, author of “The Last Campaign,” which chronicles Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign and assassination on June 6 of that year.

“It’s like an anti-hit parade, a convergence of the greatest catastrophes of the past 100 years or so, all hitting us at once,” Clarke says. “And with what hope?”

In the morass that is 2020, history’s ghosts from an assortment of American eras have resurfaced:

— From 1918, when a...