J.P. Sottile for BuzzFlash: No, the Republicans Are Not a Creation of "The Onion"
MAGA began with Reagan. Nostalgia has turned to grievance as disappointment and resentment has set in. (Thomas Hawk)
May 12, 2022
By J.P. Sottile
Nostalgia has been at the core of the conservative pitch to voters throughout my lifetime. It's been about taking back, returning to and making again. Not about expanding, growing or evolving.
It's reactionary and fearful of losing something, not trailblazing and hopeful of gaining something. It's largely sought to restore America as it was perceived to be in an idealized version of the 1950s, along with its family structure, its social structure and its clearly-defined enemy(ies).
Think of Reagan and his Brylcreamed pompadour, straight off the set of GE Theater and running on the nostalgic slogan "Make America Great Again." Yeah, that line was stolen by another nostalgia-soaked campaign you may be familiar with. And it is not alone. Those themes have been a part of every GOP campaign since Nixon, the example of Jack Kemp notwithstanding.
And why not? Americans repeatedly buy what they are selling. In fact, Americans have largely foreclosed the idea of an expansive political agenda. They've given up on the notion of politics as a source of progress and hope. And it might be that those ideas were essentially foreclosed on them when JFK was publicity executed. If nothing else, that shocking murder ushered the era of nostalgia, as Americans were forced to face what has been lost instead of dreaming of what can be. JFK sold a "New Frontier"... and "again" was in the rear view mirror until his brain matter was brutally disbursed onto the car trunk behind him.
Sure, there have been blips along the way. Bill Clinton even used Fleetwood Mac to get us "thinking about tomorrow" to sell us Neoliberalism, but mostly we've been obsessed with the end of our collective innocence and relentlessly seeking a restoration. I guess it is understandable that some want to go back to the time before hope died. Perhaps that's why the 1950s have held such an appeal for so many for so long.
But the pernicious part of nostalgia is that it often whitewashes history, avoids accountability and it absolves its quarry with a halcyon alibi rooted in "a better time." And, most importantly of all, it generates grievances among those who become convinced that their now-gone birthright was taken from them under malicious circumstances. The politics of nostalgia is destined to become the politics of grievance, and the politics of grievance is the end of hope.
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