Well, there was McCarthyism & the blacklist, massive conformity, anti-intellectualism, the American government overthrowing democratically elected governments in third world countries, and of course the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation that I still remember all too well from my boyhood then—it clung to everything like a grey miasma, heightened by duck-and-cover drills in grade school, which terrified all of us children. And seeing our parents, and all adults, as even more terrified by that threat made it worse.
As for the racism, the Dixiecrats were indeed ugly, the retrograde wing of the Democratic Party; but of course they were soon to switch to the Republican Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act just a few years later, where they've remained ever since.
The good thing about the late 1950s was that the ferment for the 1960s was already present, from the young playwrights, screenwriters, poets (the Beats in particular), artists, etc., of the era, as well as the emerging civil rights movement, the anti-nuclear movement—even the small beginnings of the women's rights movement & the gay rights movement. Shows like The Twilight Zone & the various live TV drama anthologies explored the soul-devouring emptiness of corporate life, casual & official prejudice, the need to be individuals rather than faceless cogs—it's interesting how often the likes of Thoreau & Emerson were referenced in so many shows back then!
reply
share
FilmBuff (7262)
4 years ago
The Democrats never "switched to Republicans" after the Civil Rights Act. That's pure fabrication on your part. The Republicans fought for Civil Rights and the Democrats tried to stop its passage. Other than Strom Thurmond I know of no one else who switched parties.
As for the '50s being great or awful, they were like any era, and had both good and bad elements. I certainly think that overall the 1950s was almost certainly America's peak, and we've been a steady decline since the early '60s.
reply
share
Owlwise (1535)
4 years ago
I'm sorry, but that's revisionist history. LBJ famously said that when he signed the Civil Rights Act, we has handing the South over to the Republicans for at least a generation. It's proven to be more than just one generation. The Dixiecrats went with the Republicans, which over time has become the party that harbors & encourages white racism & white supremacy.
The Republicans used to be the party of civil rights to be sure--Jackie Robinson was one, actively campaigning for Richard Nixon in 1960, until the changes of the early 60s reversed things. From that point onward, the Democrats have been the party for advancing rights for all, including all previously marginalized minorities; the Republicans now boast neo-Nazis & the likes of David Duke among their avid supporters, though certainly not every Republican is that bad.
reply
share
FilmBuff (7262)
4 years ago
So your belief is that after the Republicans spent decades fighting for civil rights, battling the Democrats who opposed them, after they won the fight and passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, all the racists decided to switch over and support the Republicans? And you back this up by saying some tiny fringe group of perhaps 1,000 total Americans support of Republicans means Republicans automatically support the fringe, racist cause? I don't see any merit in that thinking at all.
I'd counter by saying that from the fight against slavery to the creation of the KKK to the 1957 filibuster to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and onward to the present day, it has always been Republicans fighting for equality, and Democrats opposing it. The Democrat opposition used to be very direct-- enslave blacks, lynch blacks, segregate blacks, etc.-- but once it became clear that tactic no longer worked, they switched to their present-day, more subtle, but equally damaging, methods of impoverishment and blame-shifting. Democrats have switched from open racism to legislated racism.
reply
share