I hope Thomas Wolfe was wrong.
Thomas Wolfe once wrote you can’t go home again. But seeing protesters in LA confronted by heavily armed California National Guardsmen, I feel like we have gone back to all the chaos and violence of the 60’s again. In particular, one day and one place exploded in my memories. It was May 4, 1970, on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. Several thousand students gathered on the school commons at noon for a planned protest of the escalation of the war in Vietnam ordered by Richard Nixon.
Two days prior protesters had burned down the ROTC building, and Gov. Jim Rhodes called in the Ohio National Guard directly from a truckers’ strike in Akron where they had taken fire from the teamsters. By the time the Guard arrived at Kent State and saw the smoking rubble, the campus was a stick of dynamite just waiting for a match.
This is an account of what happened when soldiers confronted the student protesters on the Commons at noon. Although a fictionalized scene from my novel, RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN, it is derived from actual testimonies from those who were there.
The soldiers stood there for just a second. Oh, God! They’re pointing their rifles at us! The wind shifted. Tear gas blew all around me again. Out of nowhere, a single shot screamed out! A god-awful silence followed for maybe two seconds, maybe a minute. It seemed like forever. That horrid sound hung in the air.
Then more shots—dozens of them—shattered the silence. Almost with one voice, the people around me cried out with this anguished wail. Everyone stampeded in all directions. Some got knocked down, others stepped on. A burly, bearded guy slammed into me with his shoulder. I’m going to die!
The gas cleared for a minute, as the crowd opened up around me. Dozens laying everywhere, screaming, crying…and some of them... weren’t moving. I saw that kid again... just two feet away... on the ground with more blood around him than I ever thought possible. It ran from a gaping wound in his head, across the parking lot to the curb.
His face is gone! All that was left was a bloody, unrecognizable mass of flesh and bone and brains!
I couldn't think. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't move. Someone grabbed my arm, spun me around and yanked me away from that sickening sight.
“Robinson, you okay? God, you got blood all over you! You hit?”
I couldn't answer. All I saw was that kid in the cowboy shirt with his blood and brains splattered all over me.
“Robinson! For God's sake! We've got to get the hell out of here!” He yanked my arm again.
I shook my head. I had to wake up from this nightmare. “Peterson?”
“Run, dammit! Run!” He dragged me away from that horrid sight in front of me. We ran back to the car, through the terrified students, through the tear gas still clouding the air, through the bodies all over the Commons. Peterson slammed the car into gear, floored the gas pedal and careened through the parking lot. I had no words. What I saw, what I felt, how scared I was—there was no describing any of it. I’d been in hell, and I was never coming out again.
Democracy is fragile when taken for granted—and we nearly lost it that day.
In spite of all the protests, in spite of the violence, in spite of Kent State, there remained an undercurrent of hope that change was possible, especially when Nixon resigned in disgrace. There was an eruption of idealism that led many of us into journalism, social work, the Peace Corp, even the ministry. We still felt, in spite of, or maybe because of the abuses we had witnessed, that we could make the world a better place.
That 60’s optimism was the reason my wife Kathy and I first opened our home as a second chance house for people coming out of prison. And now, twenty-four years later, the Good Samaritan Home we founded has helped more than twenty-five hundred men and women restart their broken lives. It is our response to the chaos and violence that was also part of the 60’s.
But since January 20, and especially this week, seeing the National Guard, and especially the Marines, in the streets of Los Angeles, it is all too clear we have gone far beyond the 60’s in Donald Trump’s world. Listen to what he has to say and judge for yourself.
“If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?”
“I would bring back waterboarding. And I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
“I always say, we have two enemies … We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the National Guard—or, if really necessary, by the military.”
“Well, revenge does take time. I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified,
“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
“If you had one really violent day … one rough hour—and I mean real rough—the word will get out, and it will end immediately.”
I think California Gov. Gavin Newsom described the current crisis best. “This guy has abandoned the core principles of this great democracy.”
With all the social, political and moral chaos of the 60’s, at least we had a president who believed in the Constitution. We had a Congress who believed it was a critical check and balance to any of Nixon’s excesses. We had a Supreme Court that believed in three co-equal branches of government. We had a Democratic party that shared our foundational moral beliefs that made our nation a beacon of hope to the world.
But what worries me today more than anything else is the indifference, even civic ignorance of people who have no idea how fragile our democracy really is. Think about it. Our president, the leader of the largest economy in the world, has started eleven failed business ventures, filed bankruptcy six times, was convicted of falsifying business records, was charged with mishandling national security documents while facing charges in Georgia for racketeering related to the 2020 election, was found liable for sexual abuse, and last but not least, has been documented lying in public statements more than 3,000 times. Compared to Donald Trump, Richard Nixon was a paragon of virtue.
Yet Donald Trump not only survived two impeachment trials, but was actually re-elected. And that is what boggles my mind and has me laying awake at night. Not for my sake, but for the sake of my grandkids. They will be the ones who will pay the price in Donald Trump’s America.
I never thought I would say this, but after living in Donald Trump’s world for less than four months, I genuinely miss the morality of the 60’s. And I pray Thomas Wolfe was wrong, and we can go back home again—before it’s too late.
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Your article is so on point, John. Thank you.