Do conservatives really want to turn back the clock?

“woman carrying child standing between two vintage cars” by Seb [ P34K ] Hamel on Unsplash

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…