Those years are like bookends to our times, when one period of American life ended and another began.
After Democrats held the White House for 28 out of 36 years, the ground shifted in 1968 and, for 28 of the following 40, Republicans took control.
In 1968, Richard Nixon promised to “Bring Us Together” just as, four decades later, Barack Obama offers “Change.”
Back then, Democrats were losing their grip on power after a disastrous war and years of domestic upheaval that were stirring fears about social stability in the face of new ideas about gender, race and conventional morality.
Now the Bush years have discredited the backlash of neo-con politics that brought another miserable military misadventure and the rollback of many hard-won individual rights in the name of keeping us safe from terror.
Once again, American politics are at a turning point…