(transcript via ChatGPT)
Julian Zelizer:
Welcome back to Then and Now. I’m Julian Zelizer of The Long View.
Jonathan Alter:
And I’m Jonathan Alter of Old Goats.
Zelizer:
Jon, watching the terrible events this week in Minneapolis, the shooting by an ICE agent of the 37-year-old Renée Nicole Goode, I think everyone has been talking about it. I found myself thinking about Kent State in May of 1970, another traumatic moment, when the Ohio National Guard, called in by Governor James Rhodes to Kent State University to deal with protests, opened fire on students.
These protests followed President Nixon’s announcement that he was sending troops into Cambodia. On May 4, members of the National Guard shot at students, killing four. That moment was later commemorated in the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song Ohio. It led to national outrage over federal power, the use of the National Guard, and the war itself. There’s a similar emotional element today in how people are reacting. I’m curious how you think about that moment, what you remember, and how it might connect to what we’re seeing now.
Alter:
I was alive then. I was 12, and I remember it very vividly. Anyone over the age of nine or ten in the United States at the time knew about it. It was enormous, though younger generations don’t always realize that.
It wasn’t just Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It was the four dead in ohio, and the iconic photograph taken by John Filo, who later won the Pulitzer Prize and eventually worked with me at Newsweek. The combination of the invasion of Cambodia and deaths resulting not only in Southeast Asia but here in the United States changed the entire treatment of the Vietnam War.
It wasn’t long after that that you began seeing things like the Cooper–Church Amendment, which cut off funding for the war, and a much more intense national debate than there had been during the Johnson administration or the first year and a half of the Nixon administration.
Where the comparison is strongest is that this moment will change the debate over ICE. Just as that photograph entered popular culture, this event will too. Renée Goode will be as well known as George Floyd.
Look, it may fade from the headlines quickly, maybe even today, but it will linger as an important moment. It also gave people the courage to pull out their cell phones. Just as John Filo did at Kent State, now everyone can record what ICE is doing in this country and what Donald Trump is doing in this country.
That fearlessness, in the wake of a traumatic event, is the beginning of changing the terms of the debate.
Zelizer:
Thank you. It would be heartening if something positive emerged politically from such a tragic moment. We’ll see, but I think the comparison is very useful.
Thanks again, and thanks to everyone for joining Then and Now. We’ll be back next week.
