To the editor: I grew into adulthood 50 years ago. We had problems — but saying it was a worse time (“America was much more of a mess at the bicentennial than it is today,” June 9)?
That Supreme Court didn’t give king-like powers to a president. We didn’t have eight billionaires wielding enough wealth to essentially control the world. Healthcare was still largely nonprofit.
We didn’t have Fox News. News organizations still had to use honest-to-goodness facts.
Back then, our president put his peanut farm into a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest. He didn’t hawk golden Bibles or president-branded phones.
Fifty years ago, our president didn’t spend hours writing hate mail, nor was he an old friend of a convicted sexual predator. “Conservative” meant something back then.
Jimmie Robertson, Dana Point
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To the editor: Jonah Goldberg’s column misses the main reason why we feel nostalgia for the past. It’s because many of us were young and we miss everything about our youthful days. We miss our unlined faces and strong bodies. We miss our now-deceased loved ones. Our problems of yore did not seem insurmountable because our naive outlook on life gave us the false impression that we could eventually fix it all. We still had hopes for the future because we felt we had a long time before we reached it.
And now, here we are, having reached that future — the mirror, the headlines. No wonder we want to go back.
Jill Chapin, Santa Monica
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To the editor: Goldberg writes truth when he recounts the troubles of 50 years ago and concludes, “You’re grading the present against a past that never was.” At age 73, I remember that time clearly. Yet Goldberg’s truth is incomplete. Today’s world has more than twice as many people, stressing every aspect of life.
And 50 years ago, we did not have nor could we have ever imagined having a sitting president who would instigate an insurrection to overthrow our government.
Bob Wieting, Simi Valley
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To the editor: As a liberal, it’s a pleasure to find agreement with Goldberg’s column. I graduated high school in 1970 and experienced the ’70s up close and personal. It was not a good time.
However, I have one quibble with Goldberg’s thesis. President Nixon was terrible, and in particular a terrible threat to our democracy, but President Trump is worse.
Frank Gruber, Santa Monica
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To the editor: I lived through the John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations, the racial tensions of the ’60s and the Vietnam War. So, despite his highness in the White Castle, today is not as painful.
Saul Saladow, Los Angeles
