A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2018 Simon & Schuster Whenever I see – or hear – Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan that he will “make America great again,” I can’t help thinking that many of his mostly white, older, and politically conservative supporters are pining for an America that – in their minds – existed between 1945 and 1961: the “age of Eisenhower.” To most Americans who long for a return to those seemingly idyllic years between the end of the Second World War and John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s Inauguration as President on January 20, 1961, the world was a better one than the one we live in now. The United States, with its huge advantage in nuclear weapons over its deadly Communist rival, the Soviet Union, was the undisputed leader of the “free world.” Its industrial capacity was second to none, and as an ascendant Republican Party reclaimed control of the Congress and the White House after 20 years of Democratic dominance, conservatives began the long process of undoing Franklin D. Roosevelt’