For months now, the parallels between 2024 and 1968 have seemed eerie. The Democratic convention is once again in Chicago this August, as it was 56 years ago. The Democratic incumbent, once again, is despised by his left-wing base and seems out of touch with voters. College campuses are once again aflame over a foreign war.
And yet despite these echoes, anyone familiar with the horrors of 1968 would have thought things were much worse in that year of street battles and riots than today. Until Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Yesterday evening, an assassin’s bullet came a hair’s breadth away from killing the Republican nominee and front-runner in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump. Instead, the bullet grazed his ear, setting the stage for an iconic photo of Trump raising his fist as his Secret Service detail took him off the stage.
The shooter, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man named Thomas Matthew Crooks, climbed to the roof of a nearby building where Trump was speaking, according to an eyewitness. After his first volley of fire, Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service snipers. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that authorities had found explosive devices in his car. So far, little is known about Crooks and his motive.
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