I was one of many Americans watching the Democratic National Convention on television in August 1968. I was 18 and about to enter my freshman year of college. I was a newcomer to the antiwar movement, but I still had serious reservations about participating in demonstrations. Seeing Chicago police brutalize protesters in Grant Park, on Michigan Avenue, and in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel radicalized me. I would never again look at our government or our elected political leaders with naive innocence.

Following the convention, I followed the trial of the Chicago Eight with rapt attention. Defense attorneys Bill Kunstler and Lenny Weinglass became my personal heroes. I was fortunate to work with both of them as young lawyers and have never lost my admiration for them. They are among the finest lawyers our legal profession has produced, and the standards they set are carried forward today by lawyers at the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and many other organizations.

As Democrats reconvene for their convention, the parallels between 1968 and the present are unmistakable. The host city has never shed its well-earned reputation as a hotbed of aggressive policing. Then, as now, the incumbent president (Lyndon Johnson) announced he would not seek re-election during his term, and the party turned to the incumbent vice president (Hubert Humphrey) to run against the Republican Party and Richard Nixon in the upcoming election. Then, the country was embroiled in a terrible war in Indochina. Today, it is Gaza.

But history never repeats itself, for all its echoes and rhymes. Rather than resembling 1968 – when the left was on the rise in the US and around the world – the current political landscape more closely resembles 1932, when fascism threatened to sweep the world. In June, far-right nationalist parties won unprecedented victories in the European Parliament elections. Both Turkey and Hungary have gone neo-fascist. In Britain and France, liberal democracy still exists, but it is hanging by a thread.

Here, the GOP has become the party of Donald Trump, a malignant narcissist who makes Nixon look like a Boy Scout and a patriot. Trump and the MAGA movement he leads represent an American form of fascism, animated by nostalgia for a mythical past and driven by white supremacy, hypermasculinity, oligarchic cronyism, racism, and cultish worship of the leader.

Today’s Democratic Party is also very different from the party of 1968. If Kamala Harris is elected, she will be the first female president of the United States. And if she gets enough support in Congress, she will be able to implement the most progressive program since the New Deal.

None of this is to say that protests at the convention are a waste of time or should be condemned. As progressives, protest is in our blood. But even as we work to hold Democrats accountable, it is important to remember the need for unity against Trumpism in the November election.

In an interview with Slate in October 2020, Noam Chomsky put it this way:

My position is to vote against Trump. In our two-party system, it is a technicality that if you want to vote against Trump, you have to flip the lever for the Democrats. If you don’t flip the lever for the Democrats, you support Trump. We can argue about many things, but not about arithmetic. On November 3rd, you have a choice. Should I vote against Trump or support Trump? It’s a simple choice. He is the worst evil that has ever appeared in our political system. He is extremely dangerous.

That was four years ago. Since then, his admonition has only become more urgent.