Many things happened in the year 1968. Lots of the things that happened during the year were leading causes in who would eventually win the 1968 presidential election. The reality of it was all the bad things happening on television for everyone to see and watch in horror. You have famous political people being assassinated even before this year too. We also had government conventions going awry as well. The whole year of 1968 will always be characterized as a black mark on American history.
My theory is everyone has their good years and everyone has their bad years, that 1968 would be one of the bad years that America would have in its history. When you look closely at this year in history you see where it’s just bad luck then more bad luck occurring. We would have some good things happen then all of sudden it would seem like the good never happened because more bad things would overshadow the good occurrences.
The deciding moment that started the bad luck train was the day JFK was shot. Maybe if he had lived through his whole term things might have been different and if he was then reelected. Meaning that maybe he would have seen the war wasn’t winnable and pulled us out. It was also a year where were pulled into believing it would get better but after time things went wrong. We all had hope for Robert Kennedy to save us from all the bleakness but as the theme went that year no one was safe and nothing good was going to happen at all.
The nation did see the JFK assassination but it still wasn’t ready for all of the bad events that were going to happen from the unneeded war in Viet Nam will all the violence and unneeded deaths on the Americans side. That’s when they started to question which person was in charge and who will be the one the next four years to try to fix the mistakes caused by President Johnson.
Americans wanted and more specifically the African-American moment wanted change in the way they were treated. With all that emotion tied to Dr. King, when he was assassinated it affected many people and showed that the country wasn’t safe still and with people seeing it, it resonated more because you could say I actually saw this.
That it was so sad and I can’t believe it happened. I don’t know where we were going as a country and which led to the riots in the streets and fires and cities being destroyed and people looking for blood for the person who shot Dr. King, who was white. Eventually the county was able to mourn the loss of Dr. King and this quieted the people for a little bit.
Robert Kennedy tried to calm the storm over Dr. King. In doing so it made America calm because he said he could relate to losing his brother to an assassination by a white man. He was trying to help us get over the tragedy and people started to believe the country was going to be fixed and that Robert Kennedy was the one to do it.
People could believe it because they saw it with their own eyes on television and were not just reading a quote in the paper. Things were starting to look up for America’s future but then things started to go downward again as it had been already trending throughout the year. What happened next would align with what was already happening all year.
It wasn’t live when RFK was shot but we all were watching the seconds afterwards hearing the senator had been hit. America’s chance for fixing the mess in the country would not happen now, there would be only misery. Because RFK was such a hope for our country all kinds of people wanted to watch his funeral and say their last goodbyes even though we all never physically met him. He was a symbol of hope so we needed him to know.
We all got over the two sad assassinations to be met with enthusiasm with the Democratic convention that was to take place. It was a new hope for us to see who could take RFK’s spot as the hope to fix the country. With the stage set for a big crowd in a big city things went awry as things did all that year.
People were protesting because they wanted the war in Vietnam over and were trying to make a point because they wanted a new person in charge, but this led to violence but luckily no deaths occurred but lots of police brutality. With all the protests and divide between the Democrats it hindered who would be voted as the nominee, setting up a loss for America and the Democratic Party.
This made the nation unsure of which Democratic nominee had or what it took to become the President of the United States and help get us out of the mess we were in. As we saw on ‘Laugh In’, Richard Nixon wanted to do whatever to become President after failing in 1960. He saw this as a chance to humanize himself to the nation to show he wasn’t a cold hearted person who would keep the war going as well.
America was in a desperate situation without really knowing which candidate was better it was like picking between two evils. It caused uncertainty out of the Democratic office because they were the ones who started the war with JFK in office.
All the bad things happened during 1968 led America to turn to the Republicans, that’s how bad the year went for this country that this would be the only leading course of action. Since it was a Democratic president that lead us into Vietnam and another who kept us there and didn’t immediately withdraw the troops. America probably thought it was time for a different voice or group of voices in the White House controlling the nation.
Just like the reason we started to pull troops out of Viet Nam and questioning on why we were there was because of images on television. With all the tragic events that took place and the fact that they were live or seen all over television it made it more clear in America’s eyes that these tragedies were real and that something had to be done or changed and where a great nation would win wars and not experience the sadness like losing three very important people.
The only bad thing about America wanting change was the fact he they elected a Republican named Richard Nixon. We all know now that wasn’t a very good decision but it only capped the bad year America had.