I, among other individuals, have made comparisons between what is going on in our country today and what happened in 1968. I have taken the position that 1968 was worse, since back then both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other. I was speaking with someone a few years older than I who takes a contrary position. He says it is worse today since back then we had leaders who were respected.
He gave an example of then Vice President Hubert Humphrey. It was not only Humphrey who was running for president. At that time, pre-Watergate, the Republican candidate Richard Nixon also had been vice president for eight years under Dwight Eisenhower. It was a choice of who you wanted most.
Now we have two candidates: Biden, the current president, and Trump, the former president, both of whom have high unfavorable ratings. Their advanced ages would have been a deal-breaker back then. This is not even considering the conduct and pending criminal cases against Trump, which would have been a career ending in 1968. It has come down to the choice of the lesser evil.
It is not only the candidates for president where there has been significant decline in quality. This is also found in the Congress. In 1974, the senior statesmen of the GOP, including Senator Barry Goldwater, told Nixon that he had to resign for the good of the county, and Nixon agreed. Now we have Speaker Mike Johnson and fellow Republicans taking time to make a pilgrimage to New York to stand outside the courtroom of Trump’s trial and attack the legal system. They are purposely making the comments that the judge prohibited Trump from making because they could affect the trial.
Another example is the “cat fight” that occurred during a committee meeting involving Congress members Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jasmine Crockett, which started with Greene talking about Crockett’s false eyelashes and ended with Crockett referring to a person (Greene) having a “bleach-blonde bad-built butch body.” This led to the stopping of the proceedings. A senator compared it to something found on the Jerry Springer Show and not something that should happen in the halls of Congress. It is no wonder some of the normal people in Congress have been running for the exits.
As a resident of Kew Gardens Hills, I am fortunate to have a member of Congress, Grace Meng, who is an exception to the rule of declining quality. It is not only that she is a staunch supporter of Israel; she acts in a manner that shows she understands the importance of the position that she holds. She is respectful to colleagues and to the public. She is not one of those members of Congress who is nothing more than a performance artist. They make a big show by being outrageous while not getting anything done. If the members of Congress today had the same attitude as Grace Meng, Congress would be a better place to work in, which would get higher quality members and more things would be accomplished.
Then there is the judiciary. The court that most people care about is the United States Supreme Court. This court has also seen a significant drop in public confidence just like the president and Congress. In 1969, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortis resigned from the court when it was discovered that three years earlier, he arranged to be paid a yearly retainer for life, which was not disclosed.
Justice Clarence Thomas received significant gifts that he never mentioned in his disclosure form and did not suffer any consequences.
It was disclosed that outside Justice Samuel Alito’s house on January 17, 2021, there was an upside-down American flag. This is a sign of distress recently used by those who denied that Biden won the 2020 election. Alito blamed his wife and claimed he never saw it. It strains credibility to believe Alito’s explanation. Even if he had nothing to do with it, he must have seen it and known its significance and how it could affect people’s confidence in the court. Justice Thomas’s wife has what many feel to be extreme positions that relate to issues that the Justices have and will rule on, d such as relating to the validity of the 2020 election. It is interesting that Speaker Johnson and others who wail about Judge Merchan’s daughter’s involvement in Democratic politics have no problem with the two Supreme Court Justices’ spouses.
There is no question that the decline in quality of many of the public servants since 1968 has caused the decline in confidence of our institutions. That can be addressed by voting in new leadership. However, in a country where there are political assassinations of key leaders, this is a recipe for disaster. The country bit the bullet in 1968 and survived. But if it happened today, who knows what would happen.
Warren S. Hecht is a local attorney. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
