Member-only story
Do conservatives really want to turn back the clock?
Anyone who’s ever watched American Graffiti or Happy Days knows what era modern social conservatives pine for… it’s the era of the 1950’s, pre-Vietnam, pre-Francis Gary Powers.
More recently, I was struck by the comment of a Vietnam veteran in Ken Burns’s documentary series. I’ve recently been streaming it on Netflix, and the series is amazingly balanced, thorough and beautiful — just as you’d expect from Burns.
The comment by the vet, however, was that modern America was shaped by the Vietnam era, and that we are better off for having gone through it.
Certainly, America was changed by that period. Our first inkling that the president could lie to us occurred during the Eisenhower administration, when pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down by the Soviet Union. At first, Eisenhower issued wholesale denials. When it became clear, however, that this was an American spy plane pilot and that he had been shot down by our then mortal enemies, most Americans were shocked. They could not imagine that a President would lie to us.
Those doubts as to the veracity of politicians grew into wholesale cynicism as it became clear that first Lyndon Johnson then Richard Nixon were regularly lying about Vietnam. It became clear that lying was done by both parties.
