1968. The year the Democrat party committed suicide. Is it about to do it all over again?

That year, a senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy, captured the enthusiasm, imagination, and passion of young folks across the country. Today’s grandmothers swooned. Today’s grandfathers got “Clean for Gene” by moderating their chemical intake, getting their hair cut, and maybe even taking a bath. The “children’s crusade” then hit the road, organizing, registering, and doing all it could to put Clean Gene in the White House.

On March 12, McCarthy confounded the pundits by almost beating the sitting president, Lyndon Johnson, in the New Hampshire primary. On March 16, Bobby Kennedy entered the race. On March 31, Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election. On April 27, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the “Happy Warrior,” tossed his hat in the ring, perceived by many to be a surrogate for President Johnson.

On June 5, after winning the California primary, Kennedy was shot in a hotel kitchen; he died the next day. The increasingly bitter race between McCarthy and Humphrey continued up to the Chicago Convention, which opened on August 26.

Chicago was home to one of the last big city political machines, headed up by Richard J. Daley.

Mayor Daley and the Democrat establishment controlled the convention floor. The streets outside were controlled by anti-war activists and McCarthy supporters. Riots broke out between the protesters and the mayor’s Chicago Police Department. The violence was broadcast to the nation in bloody detail by the major television networks.

On August 28, the delegates nominated Hubert Humphrey on the first ballot, despite the fact Humphrey hadn’t won a single primary. The party was irreparably split between the traditional Democrat establishment and the anti-war, McCarthy, and Kennedy forces, many of whom of whom refused to support Humphrey, or vote for him in November.

On November 5, Humphrey lost to Richard M. Nixon by just under 500,000 votes – out of the 63,055,622 cast for the two candidates combined. The party’s act of suicide was complete, at least for that election.

So much for history. Why might a suicide watch be in order for 2016?

This time around, the establishment candidate is Hillary Clinton from New York. The insurgency is led by another senator from the northland, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

As was the case with McCarthy, Sanders has captured the enthusiasm, imagination, and passion of millions of first-time participants in the nomination process. They have several chips on their collective shoulders. They believe that throughout the race, the national Democrat party apparatus has subtly favored Clinton whenever it had the chance. They believe more than 500 “super delegates” prematurely committed to Clinton without giving Sanders a fair shot to gain their support. They believe too much emphasis was given to the results in early closed primary states that prevented independents from voting for Sanders, or took place in states the Democrats have no chance of carrying in November. Perhaps most importantly, they point to polls that show their candidate consistently beating the presumptive Republican nominee by larger margins than Clinton.

The Hillary forces have their own complaints. Bernie has not done well with critical Democrat constituencies, notably African American and Hispanic, whereas they lie at the heart of Hillary’s coalition. Bernie fails to recognize that however well he has done with the voters, nearly three million more voters have voted for Hillary than for him. Bernie’s continued sniping at Hillary is raising her un-favorability numbers for the general election. Most important to the Clinton forces, by failing the recognize the mathematical realities that overwhelmingly point to a Clinton nomination, Bernie’s refusal to lighten up a bit is requiring Clinton to expend resources that could be better used against the Republican nominee in the fall campaign.

It seems that it will all come to a head on June 7, when the forces face off against each other in the California primary, but that’s not the end of it.

Roughly six weeks later, on July 25, before passions have had a chance to totally cool, the DNC convention in Philadelphia will be gaveled to order. Both sides will have literally hundreds and hundreds of fired-up delegates spoiling to have a go at each other.

Significant percentages of Bernie supporters and Hillary supporters nationwide say they could not vote for the winner if the winner is someone other than their candidate.

Which brings us back to 1968.

Will the candidates, party leadership, and delegates in the current establishment and insurgent wings of the Democrat party prove to be more adept at patching over areas of disagreement and, generally, making nice with each other? Or will 1968 play itself out all over again, with a splintered party unwilling and/or unable to come to terms with itself?

This doesn’t mean legions of disaffected Democrats will vote for the opposition; it would be enough if, in their self-righteous indignation with opposing factions in their own party, they choose to issue their protest by not voting at all.

Will Hillary and Bernie, as well as their partisans, go down in history as the unintentional enablers of the elevation of the first reality show host to the presidency of the United States of America?

And unlike a reality show, that really would be reality.