![]() When he vetoed the effort to recharter the Second Bank of the United States, he declared he was doing so to “revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union.” Not quite as pithy as “Make America Great Again,” but you get the point. Indeed, it started being a potent force in American politics right when the founding generation died out. The simple fact is that nostalgia is a constant in American history. And don’t even get me started on such themes in music. “The Big Chill,” “ Grand Canyon,” “ Thirtysomething,” “ Reality Bites,” “ American Beauty,” “ Singles” and “ Fight Club” were premised on the idea that life was unsatisfying because it lacked purpose - or something. Indeed, in the ’80s and ’90s, popular culture was shot through with baby boomer and Gen X angst about contemporary society. The 2021 reboot of “The Wonder Years” is also set in the 1960s, which is now nearly 60 years ago. I grew up on “Happy Days” and, later, “Back to the Future.” In the early 1990s, it was “The Wonder Years,” which was set in the 1960s. She found that in recent surveys, the 1980s and 1990s are starting to supplant the 1950s as the new “good old days.” You can see evidence for this all over the place in popular culture, from the remakes of old sitcoms to original offerings such as “Stranger Things” that cast those years as a lost time of innocence.īut take it from someone who was there, Americans were pining for the good old days back then too. Karlyn Bowman studies public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute. It often seems to be about five decades earlier from right now. Indeed, Americans have always had a thing for the “good old days.” The problem is that what - or when - constitutes the “good old days” is a constantly moving target. Read more: Opinion: Why Schwarzenegger, Stallone and nostalgia for '80s action movies are back
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