Campaign slogans like “Make America Great Again” work because they implicitly point back to an idealized mid‑century moment without naming it, letting different voters fill in their own 1950s‑style memories of order and unity. Polling shows that many conservative voters believe the country was better in the 1950s, and that belief makes them more receptive to leaders who promise restoration rather than reform or adaptation.
Because the nostalgic story links social liberalization to decline, it encourages zero‑sum thinking: either regain 1950s‑style cohesion or maintain today’s egalitarian norms, but not both. Critics argue this obscures the fact that 1950s prosperity depended on policies conservatives once opposed, and that the benefits were racially and gender‑exclusive, but the simplified memory still powerfully shapes conservative identity and keeps politics oriented toward “going back” instead of negotiating new arrangements for current conditions.
–from Feminist News (Facebook)
