With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, check out these stats: According to a new poll sponsored by the Public Religion Research Institute, 67 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of white evangelicals say that our “American culture and way of life” was way better in the 1950s. Those numbers are roughly in sync with a 2021 poll, sponsored by the same group, which found that only 29 percent of Republicans believe life in America today is better than it was in the ’50s.
It’s hard to understand how they could possibly pine for a time when the air and water were dirtier than today; when, indeed, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire and the smog in Pittsburgh often obscured the sun. It’s hard to understand how they could pine for a time when more than half the population smoked cancer sticks and TV ads declared that “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” A time when – before the intervention of science – more than 20,000 Americans each year suffered polio. A time when few homes had dishwashers and clothes dryers. A time when – horror of horrors – labor unions were robust and ubiquitous.
It was also a time when Blacks were systematically barred from voting in almost every southern state, when segregation was the de facto law of the land. It was also a time when gays hid in the closet, lest they be publicly denounced as “perverts,” and indeed, President Eisenhower declared them a threat to national security and ordered the firing of all known gays serving in the federal government. It was a time when abortions were back-alley affairs – as many as a million a year – and, even with the advent of antibiotics, a few hundred women died on an annual basis. It was a time of rampant right-wing demagoguery, known then as McCarthyism, when the smearing of people as “communists” destroyed their careers; Joseph McCarthy’s gay-baiting even drove one fellow senator to suicide. It was a time when Jews were barred via “restrictive covenants,” from living in many suburbs, and were turned away from quota-enforcing colleges. It was a time when women were shepherded into the kitchen – only 1 in 3 women had jobs outside the home – and the TV shows reinforced this notion of the “fairer sex’s” proper role by depicting them cooking and cleaning in high heels with their necks bedecked by pearls. Indeed, it was a time when “homemakers” couldn’t get credit cards in their own names; in 42 states they had no legal claim on the earnings of their husbands; in no states did they have legal recourse against marital rape. The 1950s, all told, were a time when it was great to be a white Protestant male and much less so to be anyone else.
But hang on a sec!
I just re-read that last long paragraph…and it’s quite obvious why Republicans are so desirous to yank back the clock to the 1950s, and why they’ll vote in the midterms for whoever they believe can help make it happen. Now I understand. I understand it all too well.