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Americans were more united back then (if you were white and not Irish) even though the two parties still had differences. There wasn't violence between them, name calling threats and outright hatred between them for the most part. WTH happened?
I'm not even so sure that last statement is true.
We didn't have as effective record keeping of events during the 50's and 60's as we do today.
The fifties and sixties were massively different decades, as we Baby Boomers grew up into a changed world. Music, urban violence, civil rights, Viet Nam, the Beatles, political assassinations, feminism, the War on Poverty - none of these were around in the fifties or were just starting to appear (integration of schools was an early aspect of the civil rights movement) but all were highly significant during the Sixties.
So I can't really answer this poll. The Fifties were calmer, certainly, with some exceptions - the Sixties were tumultuous, to borrow a good word from the above poster. But while the changes of the Sixties were often hard to witness and/or live through, they changed this country and the world in ways that were not always comfortable but which were necessary for the most part.
Hey, weren't we all living Dennis the Menace lives? With the white picket fences?
I have to admit that I did have a childhood like that. BUT, living near Philly and having relatives as well as others I knew (Dad owned a small factory), I was under NO illusion that my situation was normal. This is why "feelings" and anecdotes are not a good metric for such things.
I remember being in my teens and riding the "El" (elevated train) through W. Philly - from the station and train high above the road AS FAR AS YOU COULD SEE (many miles) was a complete and utter poverty-stricken ghetto. And that was just one small part of it.
Sure, such things exist even today....but there is at least some hope among many in comparison.
Vietnam was a BIG DEAL....for poor white and black folks. It traumatized an entire generation or more. As others have mentioned, JFK, RFK, MLK.....bang bang, then Nixon and his crookedness.
One think that is completely irrefutable. The American Public in the last 1960's or early 1970's would not put up with Trump - they would occupy DC by the 100's of thousands regularly until something was done. Heck, Republicans wouldn't have put up with it.
So, in that sense, either the population has become jaded or complacent. Or more crooked themselves, so therefore more willing to dismiss it.
It would only be a guess for me to pick which since - as other have noted - the science of polling and statistics was not in vogue as much back then.
Even those living today who were not of age have seen an almost instant decline into accepting things that would just not cut it - even a decade or two ago.
Now the public seems to have "selective ethical standards". For about 35% of the country, their perceived end (which won't happen anyway) is worth ANY means. These people have teamed up with others who want chaos, anarchy or just plain money......to present a "united front" against Power to the People.
One think that is completely irrefutable. The American Public in the last 1960's or early 1970's would not put up with Trump - they would occupy DC by the 100's of thousands regularly until something was done. Heck, Republicans wouldn't have put up with it.
They would have never elected a Black man for President either nor nominated the estranged wife of a disgraced President to run as President. Your point?
I don't think they were better. You still had racist Democrats (just like today) that were racist against blacks but who are now racist against whites....so no change for the Democrats, just switched colors. Republicans were neutral on race then and now...nothing's changed.
MLK, JFK, and bobby Kennedy were assassinated and JFK almost got us into a thermonuclear war. Nixon resigned under pressure but shouldn't have. We were involved in a stupid war...again, I'm not thinking now is worse.
50’s and 60’s? Nonsense. It was the digital age that poisoned politics. When Internet usage became a common practice, and the 24 hr news networks appeared, politics went to hell in a hand basket. When we can’t even agree what a common “truth” is, there is a problem.
/thread
Agree. Back in the day, when we had a half-hour news broadcast at 6:00 pm, and another half-hour at 11:00 pm, we got the news. There was no time for opinion. People made up their own minds, based on factual news from sources they trusted.
Now, we have 24-hour news networks, which have to fill their time somehow, and they do so with opinion. Couple this with forums like this one, and others, and Twitter and Facebook, and anybody can post their opinion (or repeat a taking head from a "news" channel) at anytime. It's not that there is no more hard factual news--there is. But it still only takes a half-hour. The rest of the day, we get opinion.
Opinion is not news. Perhaps things were better in the 50s and 60s, simply because there were so few opportunities, time-wise, to disguise opinion as news. There's only so much you can present in a half-hour, after all; and if you are a news program faced with only thirty minutes--well, you present the news. Maybe weather and sports, too, but nothing else.
Americans were more united back then even though the two parties still had differences. There wasn't violence between them, name calling threats and outright hatred between them for the most part. WTH happened?
My feelings exactly. There were always political differences and debates, but never to the degree we are seeing today. There was a different tone to the way people thought and behaved, and , in a lot of ways, we had more class back then. We were a little more aware of other people's feelings and we respected them.
Was it utopian ? Absolutely not. Blacks were not treated well, women were 2nd class citizens, and we were not very accepting of people of other nationalities. But overall, it was a kinder, more gentle time. And then the Vietnam war came along and the country changed for the worse. The mid 60's became a very tumultuous time and America was no longer Mayberry, or Ozzie and Harriet.
They would have never elected a Black man for President either nor nominated the estranged wife of a disgraced President to run as President. Your point?
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