How many times have we heard that this election is like no other? That this is an extinction level event, threatening the very fabric of the republic.   And yet history tells us that we’ve survived far worse.  Be it the civil war, McCarthyism, violent labor strife at the turn of the last century,  political assassination and of course, the chaos of the 1960’s

To try and put all of this in context, in the home stretch of this political season, I spoke with Julian Zelizer. He is a Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton and the author, most recently of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society.

My conversation with Professor Julian Zelizer: