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The Myth of the Good Old Days: How Nostalgia Blindly Rewrites History
Longing for a Time That Never Was
“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily remembrance of things as they were.” — Marcel Proust
There is a phenomenon within revisionist history that seems to be a constant throughout the ages: the false notion of the “good old days.” It may seem to many today that the “Make America Great Again” slogan that helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 was a new development. It wasn’t.
Most today either forget or simply never knew that in his 1932 campaign for the White House, Franklin Roosevelt’s campaign song was “Happy Days are Here Again.” The song remained the Democratic Party’s unofficial theme song until around the time Bill Clinton decided he liked Fleetwood Mac better, with their song “Don’t Stop” (specifically the line “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”) more a look forward than a look back.
Bill Clinton notwithstanding, it is and always has been politically advantageous, especially for the party not in power, to appeal to the good old days. The same is true of our view of history, where nostalgia can overwhelm the facts. This is particularly true when times are difficult. So let’s examine just a few instances where people have looked back wistfully on the good old days of…
