SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
An assassination attempt, campus protests against a war, a president with discouraging polls who chooses not to run and protests set for a Democratic convention in Chicago. Many commentators and historians have said they see parallels between events in 1968 and this election season in 2024. But in a recent interview in the Columbia Journalism Review, Michael Socolow, media historian at the University of Maine, cautioned against media trying to fit current events into the mold of the past. He joins us now from Bangor, Maine. Thanks so much for being with us.
MICHAEL SOCOLOW: Thank you.
SIMON: What are some concerns about using, or perhaps misusing, history?
SOCOLOW: Well, my main concern is that we get so anxious and uncertain about the present controversies we're dealing with that we really kind of cling to history for security that may, in fact, mislead us - right? - because we're not exactly like 1968. There's a lot of very major differences, and to think that we're like 1968 could be a problem.
SIMON: Differences like what?
SOCOLOW: Well, I'll give you an example. I don't think in 1968, 150 million Americans had handheld devices with software on them that was, you know, in service to the Chinese government. And in 2024, we don't have literally hundreds of caskets flying in from Vietnam every month.
SIMON: We might explain here. You not only grew up in the news business but served time there yourself and, I guess, were on duty at CNN the night of O.J. Simpson's Bronco chase. Why do you say in the Columbia Journalism Review that history sells?
SOCOLOW: History sells, and it always has sold well because there is a hunger in the audience to try and sort of categorize the events that we're all dealing with - right? - because it reduces our anxiety. It's much easier to say that Vladimir Putin is Hitler and attacking Ukraine is just like 1939 in Poland because it's digestible, it puts us in a context we understand, and we can move on in our lives than to actually take on the idea that there's, you know, these new global pressures that we may or may not know about or may not understand. And that increases anxiety. So it's the difference in that way. And so there's always been a call for a kind of historical analogy.
SIMON: What are some of the other current parallels to history now currently invoked that make you uncomfortable?
SOCOLOW: Here's an example I would caution against, OK? It's very difficult to categorize Donald Trump exactly and with certainty in historical context, right? I mean, you can call Donald Trump Hitler and fascist because you can draw out these parallels and patterns to antidemocratic discourse. But, in fact, if you look at the three things that Donald Trump campaigned most enthusiastically for in 2016, they were locking up Hillary Clinton in jail, they were overturning Obamacare, repeal and replace Obamacare, and they were building a wall and having Mexico pay for it. None of those three things happened in the four years he was president. Other examples would be the way we think about and apply sort of anomalous situations to our current present-day predicaments.
SIMON: Such as?
SOCOLOW: I see a lot of discussion of the Confederacy. I see a lot of discussion of reconstruction. I see a lot of discussion of fascism based in conditions that don't exist anymore. I mean, if you just think about the way we all interact with each other through social media, that creates an entirely new context that didn't exist in Germany - in Weimar, Germany, in the 1920s.
SIMON: Can people be selective when they cite what they consider historical parallels? I've found myself, having been in Grant Park in 1968, of sometimes reminding people who was actually elected president that year.
SOCOLOW: (Laughter) Exactly. It's fascinating because, you know, the argument that was made by a lot of historians to keep Biden the Democratic nominee was what happened with LBJ, what happened when Truman decided not to run. And the thing that's so interesting is that in 1968, in Grant Park in Chicago, you didn't have TikTok. You didn't have Instagram. You didn't have micro-influencers. You didn't have an entirely new political communication dynamic that could change everything. You had the three networks, and you had chance of the whole world is watching. It was so different that we truly don't know what the switch from Biden to Harris means in 2024.
SIMON: You also suggest in the Columbia Journalism Review it's very hard for media to say, I just don't know.
SOCOLOW: Yes. Having been a journalist and, you know, covering the O.J. Simpson story at CNN, and I've worked at the Olympics and stories like that and having been a historian and earning a doctorate in history, both processes are very humbling. I mean, I'm not sure how much the public really knows when they read an article - something very simple, like when a reporter goes to a city council meeting - that the journalist has to be selective. They're not getting a comprehensive reviewed transcript detail of that city council meeting. They're getting the journalist's perception of it. And the journalist knows this and the journalist knows what's being left out.
And the same is true in history when we choose to think about history. And I'll use your example of you being in Grant Park in 1968 when you look back on it. I bet you could find many, many things that don't fit the pattern of 2024, but it doesn't make us feel better. And I'm simply saying that from communication ethics standpoint, just being more honest and transparent about the differences as we grab onto all the similarities, I think, would be helpful for the audience.
SIMON: Michael Socolow, a media historian at the University of Maine. Thanks so much for being with us.
SOCOLOW: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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