The Nostalgia Trap

            I hope you had a happy childhood. I hope you felt safe and secure and free to roam your world. I hope you look back on those years fondly. That feeling is called nostalgia.

            Nostalgia can be a good feeling, but it’s a rotten foundation for a political worldview. Donald Trump is nostalgic for the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when robber barons were practically a law unto themselves. I don’t think that view is widely shared outside the billionaire class, but I think lots of people are nostalgic for the 1950s.

            I get it. The middle class, particularly the white middle class, grew tremendously during that period. There are many reasons why. In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. had by far the world’s strongest economy. A strong labor movement helped to raise blue-collar workers into the middle class. A steeply progressive tax system underwrote massive investments in infrastructure, which in turn facilitated a boom in housing construction.

            For many people, however, the 1950s represent a simpler time before the upheavals of the 1960s called into question traditional values. Their image of the 1950s might be shaped by Leave It to Beaver, conjuring a world of breadwinner dads, stay-at-home moms, and innocent children. Or maybe they relate to The Andy Griffith Show, imagining a time when small towns like Mayberry supported small businesses and caring neighbors, and people of color were nowhere to be seen. Trying to bring back those imagined communities is, I think, the emotional wellspring of today’s culture wars.

            It’s easy to see how that kind of nostalgia warps the MAGA view of history. Just consider the rise of Christian Nationalism, or look at how Trump is trying to erase uncomfortable truths from the Smithsonian. The truth is that the 1950s were good times for a lot of white, cisgender men, but fully one fifth of the U.S. population still struggled through poverty. It was in the 1960s that the country rediscovered all the people who hadn’t shared in the economic prosperity of the postwar era, and we took a closer look at the barriers that had shut them out.

            Many people are struggling economically today, and they are tempted to blame their struggles on those efforts to promote equal opportunity for everyone. That sentiment reflects a view of the economy as a zero-sum game where if one group gains, another loses. Trump’s attacks on DEI play into that, as do his attempts to shut off immigration. Ample evidence exists that immigration does not depress wages for native-born workers, but immigrants provide a convenient scapegoat for frustrated Americans.

            If we are ever going to create an economy of shared prosperity, the people that ought to do more sharing are the ultra-wealthy. I think most people realize that too much economic wealth and power is concentrated at the top, but they don’t know what to do about it. The first Gilded Age ended when progressive reformers took on the robber barons, and we can do that again. Democrats must take the lead in helping to forge an economy of abundance that works for everyone.

            The economy of the future will never look quite like that of the 1950s. We could sure use another boom in housing construction, but we are never going to bring back coal mining. Yet we remain a rich country with a capacity for innovation. If we put our minds to it, we can build a future where, in the words of Paul Wellstone, “we all do better when we all do better.”

Paul Harris