What President McKinley’s Assassination Can Teach Us About This Moment In 21st Century Politics

One-hundred twenty-four years ago, President William McKinley became the third American president to be assassinated at the hands of a radical, unemployed anarchist, Leon Frank Czolgosz.

Are there any lessons we can glean from that dark chapter in American history that might give us more perspective on the events that unfolded Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner? Of course there is. Although it is now customary to think that every event Americans live through in 2026 is somehow unique or unprecedented, history has a funny way of reminding us that this is simply not the case. In fact, history reminds us that the world, as well as its technologies, may change at a rapid pace, but the humans living in it have not and will not.