The following is excerpted from an editorial that appeared in The Concord Monitor (N.H.).

History is usually forged by way of the slow burn. That changes when the slow burn becomes a fire.

Think of the summer of 1967, when the United States both pulled together and came apart at the seams. The “Summer of Love” that rippled outward from San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood shares space on the timeline with the “Long, Hot Summer” of blood-soaked race riots in Boston, Tampa, Buffalo, Newark, Minneapolis, Detroit, Washington, D.C.–more than 150 in all. Or the summer of 1969, when the dizzying heights of the moon landing and Woodstock were countered with the lows of Chappaquiddick, Charles Manson and, of course, Vietnam. In the 1960s and early ‘70s, there was always Vietnam.

Half a century later, it’s the middle of July. This feels like one of those summers.

Zoom all the way out, and you see a backdrop of climate change, war, guns, contentious politics and precarious race relations. Zoom in a little and you see the Islamic State, masses of refugees, two polarizing presidential candidates and a black president trying to heal racial wounds through little more than the eloquence of his words. Look even closer and you begin to make out details in Orlando, Baton Rouge, Minnesota, Dallas. You can see the faces of 49 dead at Pulse, and the blood as it flows from Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. You can see the fallen protectors — Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens and Michael Smith — and their opposites, Omar Mateen and Micah Johnson.

Notice, too, all of the Republican politicians who cultivate fear and disharmony in order to reap votes.

If you listen closely you can hear them: Illegal immigrants, Muslims, Planned Parenthood, Democrats — they are the enemies, the ones who want to steal your American dream. From their wholly imagined position on moral high ground, Republicans have chosen as their presidential nominee a man clearly unfit for the job.

The history of this summer is still being written, and we hold out hope that it will be remembered as a season that began with violence and discord and ended with peace and reason.

We hope it will be a season defined by political bravery rather than expediency.

We hope compassion replaces anger.

Above all, we hope.