I am not from America and lives in Europe. I am trying to understand what life and values the republicans in office right now wants for America. Is the 50’s America the kind of country they hope to go back to or is it somewhat of a new state we have never seen before?

I am genuinely wondering if they have some kind of “utopian” community in mind doing all these changes to the economy and values.

  • hansolo@lemmy.today
    101·
    2 days ago

    This administration, and IIRC also within the text of Project 2025, wants to “undo the 20th century.” Primarily that’s everything that’s happened since WWII, but once they get into it, they like the 1880s better because it’s when Robber-barons could do anything they wanted, corruption was unchecked, and women couldn’t vote.

    The anchoring to the 1950’s-1960’s are because there’s a lot of Boomers who remember that time period as (to them) the height of civilization, because most people generally assume that any time period where they were 16-25 is the best anything ever was.

    • wjrii@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      2 days ago

      Agreed. I think this is more specifically it rather than the 50s.

      • Unfettered domestic commerce devoid of worker protections.
      • International trade viewed as zero-sum and managed using blunt instruments like tariffs.
      • America as a rising manufacturing power.
      • Nominally speaking there is no slavery, but Reconstruction is “done” and Southern elites have been rehabilitated and reintegrated without having to give up their power.
      • Foreign policy built on late-stage colonialism where areas within a great power’s sphere of influence are silently allowed to be dominated so as not to antagonize other great powers. Relations handled by a stupid nest of ad-hoc limited-party treaties.
      • No effort is given to contextualizing what the American experiment has meant, and who it has harmed, just literally a “manifest destiny” from god to fill the land.

      Ignore that the era was laissez-faire with immigrants actually arriving (though of course the robber barons who were working their laborers to death were okay with this… until they began to unionize), and it’s a remarkably apt analogy. I’m pretty sure you can see Trump openly pining for The Gilded Age from time to time, though that may literally just be because he thinks gilding things is awesome.