Look Back in Awe

[Joanne98]

Look Back in Awe

Even baby boom liberals who spent their youth in rebellion against the tranquilized 1950s have become homesick for its virtues.

Mark Schmitt | November 22, 2007

Democrats and Republicans are alike in one respect, according to the libertarian writer Brink Lindsey: their shared nostalgia for the 1950s. Except, he says, "Republicans want to go home to the United States of the 1950s, while Democrats want to work there."
Indeed, from television (where Mad Men has faithfully recreated the furnishings, boozy smell, and chronic sexual dishonesty of the New York executive suite circa 1960), to the celebrated 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, to the current political debate, we seem to be awash in 1950s nostalgia. While most of the Republican presidential candidates have life experiences more reminiscent of The Ice Storm than The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, all invoke a vision of the patriarchal, orderly family of post–World War II suburban fantasy. And in their approaches to the world, all recreate that combination of belligerent, can-do triumphalism with mortal terror not seen since the decade of duck-and-cover drills, before Vietnam stripped away the triumphalism and the end of Communism alleviated the fear.

But even baby boom liberals who spent their youth in rebellion against the tranquilized 1950s have become homesick for its virtues. Ninety-one percent tax rates! Unions! Declining income inequality! Working people in nice big houses. What's to protest?

To be fair, and not just because the founding editors of this magazine are prominent among those calling attention to the virtues of the 1950s economic order, they are hardly calling for a return to Eisenhower's America, with its stifling conformist culture, cruel sexism, and tiny half steps toward racial justice.

Rather, Paul Krugman, Bob Kuttner, and Bob Reich (in their recent books) and the MIT economists Frank Levy and Peter Temin in a recent paper, "Inequality and Institutions in Twentieth-Century America," use the 1950s and 1960s to show what's possible. Their argument is a necessary reproach to the likes of Thomas Friedman, who view us as passive little boats swept along on waves of globalization, insisting that we accept all the inequality and disruption that goes along with that because the alternative is global stagnation. It's vital to understand that there was a time when great prosperity and greater equality not only co-existed but were taken for granted. And that it was political institutions and choices that made shared prosperity possible: Greater bargaining power in the hands of workers. A robust social safety net. A government that invested in infrastructure and in individuals, through the GI Bill and federal mortgage insurance programs. Manufacturing wages adequate for one worker to support a family. A corporate culture of stewardship rather than short-term profits.

All of this is true, but it begs the question: Could we really just work in the 1950s without having to live there, too? Or were the circumstances that created the great middle-class nation unique to that moment of postwar economic hegemony? Continued>>>
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=look_back_in_awe

[Warpy]

1. What was there to protest?

Our parents, smug in their security in housing developments that were segregated as to class, culture, and often religion, were perfectly happy to accept the half citizen status of women and people of color. They were happy to accept the regimentation of the whole country. They were happy to start voting for GOPs who promised to lower their taxes so they wouldn't have to pay for abandoned women who had little access to careers that would support them and their children. Seeing black folks fight for their rights scared them, and they were happy to vote for GOPs who promised repression.

Right wingers who look back at the 50s with nostalgia long for a time when women and people of color knew their places as inferiors. The thought that it was only acceptable along with New Deal economics gives them the willies.

Left wingers look back at it and realize that the best deal working people ever had in this country didn't need to be combined with social horrors as its price.

That's what there was to rebel against in the 50s. Any of us who grew up in that time know exactly why so many of us turned to drugs in the 60s.

[Joanne98]

2. Yep! Wall Street took advantage of the "culture wars" and destroyed the economy!

Now we're bankrupt, the dollar is worth nothing, the middle class is being destroyed, we have more people in prison then anyone on Earth and the only people who are happy live on Wall Street!

I hope the conservatives are happy!

[Sister_In_Law]

3. No, The Conservatives Are Not Happy, Either.

At least, not the rank and file. They draw a line between the Globalist Neocons and themselves. Every conversation I've had with Republicans in my conservative little corner of Indiana convinces me this is so.

The Democratic party had better figure this out before the next election. The Repubs know they've been sold a bill of goods and are really, really pissed off about it.

The first party to take advantage of this overwhelming sense of disenfranchisement is going to win, hands down, no matter WHO their candidate is.

[Joanne98]

4. That's true. The Republicans I talk too are not happy either...

There all calling themselves Libertarians now. But they still won't vote for Hillary.

[Sister_In_Law]

10. I'm not sure you're right about that.

It kind of depends on who the Republicans field. Even if they don't like her, many would be willing to vote for her if she's perceived as the best of a bad lot.

I just hope all those Repubs calling themselves Libertarians don't give us a bad name. I actually AM one, but I don't think any conservative would agree with my belief that drugs or prostitution or a host of other things should be decriminalized.

[Joanne98]

5. PS Welcome to DU! I'm right next door in Ohio!

:hi:

[Sister_In_Law]

11. Thanks for the welcome.

I'm about 7 miles from the Ohio state line.

[Skittles]

6. ALL REPUKES STINK

it's just a matter of degree that necons stink more

[Sister_In_Law]

12. You have good reason for thinking this way

but such blanket statements are counter-productive.

If political inclination falls along a standard bell curve (and assume for the purposes of this argument that it does), then there's a whole lot of people in the middle who can lean one way or the other. Just because they may be registered Republicans doesn't mean they won't and don't vote Democratic.

I read an interesting study about perceptions regarding Christianity (bear with me on this one - I do have a point) that shows that a majority of people who are opposed to organized Christianity do so NOT because they don't like the concept in theory, but because they've had some really bad experiences with individuals who purport to be Christians. (The study did not include avowed atheists or agnostics, jut those who weren't sure.)

If this is true for religion it seems logical that it would also be true for politics. And the country has a lot of people who aren't sure any more just WHAT they are politically.

I'm hoping that you made such a statement because DU is a safe forum for it. Just try not to do so in real life. We need all he votes we can get and dissing moderate Republicans isn't going to get us there.

[flashl]

13. While working the 2004 campaign

many rank and file Republicans loudly voiced their disdain for the GOP. Some of these individuals demonstrated how visceral their alienation with their party by coming into a democratic party HQ to shred their voter id cards. Many explained that their acts were significant because they were multi-generational Republicans. They returned to display their new democratic party cards and worked hard to remove * from office.

In discussions with individuals working the 2004 campaign similar stories surfaced across the country. This anecdotal crossover observation makes the 2004 win even more suspect in my mind.

[bemildred]

7. What is interesting to me, in looking back to the fifties, is two things ...

1.) The progress that has been made in political equality for non-white-male sorts of people, and the fact that it is now socially unacceptable to use racial, ethnic, and gender slurs in the casual way that they were used back then. Unfortunately this has coincided (not by accident either) with the evisceration of the integrity of the political system.

2.) The way that our so-called political leaders have frittered away the opportunity he held in our hands back then to make the world a better and safer place, choosing instead to wallow in illusions of omnipotence and the pursuit of windrows of commercial junk. Back then, we really did bestride the world like a colossus, and what have we done with that?

[0007]

8. Your link needs fixing. Can't get it to come up. nt

[Joanne98]

9. I just used it. It's working!