Trump’s Promised Golden Age: The Dangerous Psychology of Political Nostalgia

The Golden Age that Never was: Mourning the Delusion of “The Good Guys”

God, remember when we used to pretend we were the “good guys”? I know, I know, it’s embarrassing to own up to, like finding an old Polaroid of yourself with your ’70s hair. I actually miss the days of patriotic delusion when you didn’t need to tie yourself in a Gordian knot of cognitive dissonance. I know, white privilege, but it was nice back then… at least for white people

I miss the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake. Not like THAT! I miss that the US was always the first country to respond with aid and assistance. There was never a question. Anytime anywhere a natural or humanitarian disaster occurred, we were there with equipment, personnel, supplies, money. We really helped people. We really saved lives.

I miss our 55% voter turnout rates. We may not have been enthusiastic voters, but our elections were free, fair, and reliable, and any attempts at voter intimidation resulted in lawsuits and federal consent decrees.

I miss Gary Hart. Maybe he would’ve been a good president; probably would’ve been a better candidate than Dukakis. But, I miss the days when a lie and a scandal could end a campaign and career in a matter of days. I miss when shame mattered.

The Light Side vs. the Dark Side: How Nostalgia Rewires the Brain

I’d love to hear what you’re nostalgic for, or what you miss about our politics in the comments. I think we are all nostalgic for something, but, as it turns out, how we are nostalgic for our politics determines whether we’re normal citizens or radical lunatics!

That there is #ScienceFact, my friends! According to a study by Bélanger et al. Political nostalgia influenced your penchant for political violence! As it turns out, there’s a dark side of nostalgia and a good side.

Harmonious Passion: The Light Side has Cookies

When nostalgic reverie for yesteryear helps us feel connected to the larger fabric of society, it promotes belonging and unity. We see ourselves as a great big melting pot of stewing candle wax being boiled down into a gray mix of colors. We all belong. We are one big family. We are all Americans with a shared identity and commitment to creating a more perfect union. That’s the light side, the side with cookies.

Bélanger calls this “harmonious passion.” People in this group have not had their entire identity subsumed by their politics. They still have a real life. They have family, jobs, hobbies, hope, and dreams, all separate and distinct from politics. And, bonus: their support for political violence decreases!

Obsessive Passion: “Grievance Seeps into the Heart”

Then, there’s the dark side of nostalgia; what Bélanger calls “obsessive passion.” The side that emphasizes what has been lost. Stolen, like some sniveling Hobbitses sneaking around in the dark stealing our Precious. Our PRECIOUS!

When the past is seen as Paradise Lost, grievance seeps into the heart and begins to poison the soul. Politics ceases to be about approaches to governance; it becomes a cage match fighting to the death over a shrinking pie. We begin to see the world as us versus them, a zero-sum fight over that pie, and by God, me and mine will get seconds before you and yours get firsts, or we’ll burn the diner down while finishing our coffee!

These people are prone to political violence.

The Politics of Eternity: Weaponizing Paradise Lost

Fox News and talk radio created the blob that would absorb many of our parents into this toxic world of hate and fear. Trump exploited it by painting a rosy picture of the halcyon days of yore: when we were all blond-haired, blue-eyed boys out grabbing the world by the pussy! Taking what was rightfully ours before these nogoodnik liberals started slipping all the Blacks and Browns and people who prayed to funny gods into the line for the American dream ahead of us. With his leadership, a few cracked heads, and taking the votes from those who never shoulda had it in the first place, we’d return to this nirvana.

This is what Timothy Snyder and other political scholarly types called the Politics of Eternity. They claim that all progress toward a more perfect union is a lie. The arc of the moral universe does not, in fact, bend towards justice because it is a closed circle — an eternal fight between the good guys (us) and those bad people over there. Only those bad people are no longer over there; they are right here raping our fathers, marrying our mothers, stealing our jobs, and walking our dogs just like they are regular old white Americans!

The Infinite Fortnight: Perpetual Crisis as Governance

The problem is that this mythical golden age never existed. It is a bill of goods sold to us using the currency of our rights and civil liberties. For the low low price of signing over your rights to due process and equality under the law, we can live in the land of milk and honey that our forebears promised us. Only, the milk and honey never flowed forth so we’d live in a sticky souring mess, but it is always perpetually “two weeks away.”

During that infinite fortnight, authoritarians keep stirring the pot of grievance, fear, and anger to keep us agitated and fighting. We live in perpetual crisis where, once it’s finally resolved, we can move into the promised land of Happy Valley — where we can all be hung by our necks until we cheer up! Won’t it be grand!

During that infinite fortnight, authoritarians keep stirring the pot of grievance, fear, and anger to keep us agitated and fighting. We live in a perpetual crisis where, once it’s finally resolved, we can move into the promised land of Happy Valley—where we can all be hung by our necks until we cheer up! Won’t it be grand!

The nostalgic longing of these obsessive passion types has been weaponized into a simmering cauldron of violence, waiting to boil over into real-life physical bloodshed we have all become way too familiar with.

The Politics of Inevitability: Playing Craps with Loaded Dice

Before you go congratulating yourself on being too smart for this authoritarian trickery, remember that liberals have played a part in this passion play, too. We just as eagerly sat down at the craps table and threw the dice, believing that the arc of the universe bending toward justice was inevitable. All we had to do was keep our seats warm and keep playing — never realizing that the dice were loaded and we were never going to win.

This is known as the Politics of Inevitability. It’s a seductive dream, ain’t it? We don’t have to do nothing no more. We live in a democracy, which will never devolve and only continue to evolve. All we have to do is enjoy the fruits of the labor of our forebears.

Okay, white liberals have believed this, starting with Reagan, I imagine. Black folks always knew that they had to fight for whatever portion of the American Dream they were going to get, and that the small, precarious portion they held could always be taken from them in an instant.

Welcome to the Golden Age: Pay Up and Die Quickly

While we were dreaming our sweet dream of a more perfect union, Trump was stealing our future, the future of our children, and the future of their grandchildren. But, the man with the fecal touch strikes again. He can’t help himself. He has to gloat and jactate. He’s saying we are now living in the Golden Age; no longer are we longing to return to it. We’re in it! It’s arrived. Nirvana walks among us!

So sit back, relax, and hand your hard-earned money over to the one percent. And, while you’re at it, die quickly and quietly when you’re no longer able to contribute more than you cost. Thanks for doing your part in making the oligarchs trillions!

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