Mar 15, 2016 3 min read

Last week, I went to bed in 2016 and woke up in 1968 – only the guy sporting a ponytail at a political rally was sucker-punching a protester, not getting beat up himself. Other than that 180-degree turn, the political season of 2016 is, as Karen Carpenter so appealingly sings, “yesterday once more.”

But I’m not feeling nostalgic.

You see, I lived through the presidential election cycle of 1968, and I’ve no wish to do so again. Yet, lest we forget – and it appears that we have – it’s 1968 all over again. And 1968 was a horrible year.

A brief summary of only the politically significant events of that year:

The United States was bogged down in the Vietnam War, a conflict so unpopular that President Lyndon B. Johnson, who once seemed ordained to win a second elected term, withdrew from the race. Shortly after, Robert F. Kennedy entered the contest. Shortly after, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Shortly after, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Shortly after, American Independent Party candidate George Wallace, who ran an admittedly racist campaign, told enthusiastic supporters that if he were elected president and protesters lay down in front of his limousine, “it will be the last limo they want to lay down in front of.” Shortly after, Chicago police mercilessly beat anti-war protesters outside the Democratic convention. Finally, in November, Richard M. Nixon defeated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey for the presidency, in large part because Wallace drew almost 14 percent of the vote, siphoning off support that would have gone to Humphrey.

Yes, 1968 was a horrible year in America. But 2016 may be even worse.

For all its flaws, 1968 didn’t produce a presidential campaign rife with the vitriol or sheer idiocy of this year’s. No candidate in 1968 promised to keep entire blocks of nationalities from entering the United States, a country built on the blood, sweat and tears of immigrants. No candidate pigeonholed all members of a “different” religion as hating America. No candidate made a thinly veiled reference to an opponent’s sexual prowess; no candidate disparaged an opponent’s height, as if there was a sign posted outside the White House saying “You must be this tall to ride.”

Maybe that’s because, mercifully, there were no presidential debates in 1968. At least in that way, the worst year of the ’60s outshines what may yet be the worst year of whatever you call the second decade of the 2000s.

I have been apolitical most of my life, and I don’t believe that it’s the job of a columnist – or anyone, for that matter – to tell people who to vote for. But do me, yourself and our country this courtesy: Vote with your brain, not with your gut or your heart.

And do some research before you cast your ballot. If you don’t know their meaning, look up the words “demagoguery,” “pandering” and “xenophobia.” Look up “selective memory.”

Then, as you enter the voting booth, remember that loud-mouthed, drunken uncle who stumbled through your wedding reception. Funny, wasn’t he?

Right up until he stabbed the bride through the heart with the cake knife.