On December 31, 1967, Americans weren't sure Democracy - or anyone - would survive another year. (Spoiler: We're still here.)

Let’s imagine for a moment that we are from the future, visiting in a time machine. We arrive in these United States to find a nation infested by dissension, danger, and distrust. 

The country feels like it’s vibrating with tension. America is facing war — wars, actually, while televisions flicker with staggering body counts, burning cities, and terrified refugees.

Thanks to soviet aggression, the specter of Cold War hangs over everything like a loaded gun. Global annihilation isn’t a metaphor; it’s a possibility. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and the world could end before tomorrow morning.

The streets are restless. Protests erupt on college campuses and in city centers. Police clash violently with demonstrators. Tear gas drifts through neighborhoods. Buildings burn. National Guard troops stand watch over American cities as if they were occupied territory. Political violence feels close — inevitable. Everyone is bracing for the next assassination, the next explosion, the next rupture.

Families are split down the middle. Parents and children speak different moral languages. Flags are burned. Authority is mocked. Institutions are distrusted. The presidency itself feels shaky, suspect, fragile. Many believe democracy itself is buckling under the strain — that the system can’t possibly absorb this much anger, this much division, this much fear.

We buy a newspaper on the closest street corner.

“What is today?” We shout. The headline blares from every edition: “This can’t last. The country is coming apart. America won’t survive this.”

It feels permanent. It feels unprecedented.

It feels like the end.

It’s New Year’s Eve. December 31, 1967.

Though separated by decades, 2025 and 1967 have a few unmistakable parallels.

In 1967, as in 2025, America was exhausted by the last war and anxious about the next one. 

During those days, Vietnam was dominating the national psyche while nuclear annihilation loomed in the background, an ever-present threat. Protesters filled the streets. Cities burned. Political violence was suddenly part of the social fabric. Families were fractured over politics, patriotism, and morality. 

Plenty of Americans were convinced the democratic experiment was over.

Now fast-forward to December 31, 2025. The wars are different, but the anxiety feels familiar. Conflict abroad threatens to spiral out-of-control. Protests have returned. Over war, but also over injustices at home. Global catastrophe feels like a real possibility. As in 1967, political tribes have hardened to the point of breaking. Talk of political violence is no longer confined to the lunatic fringe.

There was a major assassination in 2025 — and two attempts in 2024.

It’s jarring.

Unlike in 1967, today, technology compresses fear into real time, delivering outrage and catastrophe straight into our pockets 24/7. And once again, Americans whisper — sometimes shout — that democracy can’t survive this level of division.

The details change. Leaders change. The weapons change. The language changes. But the emotional weather is eerily similar: uncertainty, anger, fear, and the conviction that this time is worse than all the other divisive times that came before.

And yet, we often forget: In 1967, Americans were wrong about the ending. Just as everyone has always been wrong in predicting the end of the world or the End of American Democracy As We Know It.

After all, even some of the founding fathers didn’t believe the great U.S. experiment in liberty would survive their lifetime.

But the country did not collapse — not after its founding, not after the Civil War, not after the Civil Rights era, not after two world wars, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, 9/11 or a hundred other major catastrophes it has faced.

The republic bent, absorbed the shock, and moved forward — scarred but still standing.

History doesn’t promise comfort. But it does offer perspective. And perspective suggests that 2025 is not an exception — it’s another test we’ve faced before.

So, as a new year dawns, perhaps some optimism wouldn’t be misplaced.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)