“Make America Great Again”: Chasing Ghosts in a World on Fire

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. It’s that little dopamine rush that hits when you hear an old song or smell your childhood home before remembering that life was only easier back then because you didn’t have bills to pay, a body falling apart, or a government lurching toward theocratic fascism like a drunk stumbling toward the nearest dive bar.

Let’s all take a collective time machine back to whenever “again” was supposed to be.

Was it the 1950s, when a single paycheck could buy a house, but Jim Crow was still the law of the land?

The 1980s, when Wall Street goons snorted the economy up their noses and Reagan whispered sweet nothings about trickle-down economics while gutting the middle class?

Or maybe the early 2000s, when gas was cheap, the War on Terror was revving up, and we all thought the Patriot Act was just a quirky little inconvenience?

The past is a carefully curated highlight reel—a scrapbook of selective memory where all the bad parts get conveniently cropped out. MAGA isn’t about fixing the present or planning for the future; it’s about clinging to an imaginary golden age that never really existed.

It’s geriatric retirement community meets Disney fantasy, where you dress up the past in sepia tones and forget that it was mostly full of bad haircuts, worse policies, and the same existential dread, just with a different soundtrack.

The Trap of Nostalgia: When the Past Was “Better” (For Some)

People who support MAGA often romanticize past decades, believing them to be simpler, happier times. But this perception is highly subjective and selective.

What people remember as a “golden age” was often just a time when they personally felt better because they were younger, healthier, had fewer responsibilities, or were simply less aware of the world’s problems.

For many, the 1950s, 1980s, or even early 2000s seem like better times because of their own personal experiences, not because those eras were truly superior.

The past may have been economically easier for some, but it was also riddled with deep inequalities:

Jim Crow laws and segregation still dominated the American South in the 1950s.

The 1980s saw growing wealth inequality and the rise of unchecked corporate power.

The early 2000s gave us financial deregulation that led to the 2008 crash.

Each of these “great” eras had deep, systemic problems that conservatives conveniently ignore. Their nostalgia is not about real progress but about maintaining a version of the world where they felt comfortable and in control.

The Great Regression: Why Looking Backward Will Break Your Neck

Nostalgia is comforting. It’s a warm blanket in the middle of a storm. But the second you start legislating based on nostalgia, you’re no longer a wistful old-timer reminiscing about how gas was a dollar a gallon—you’re actively sabotaging the future to protect the ghosts of a world that no longer exists.

MAGA, at its core, is a funeral for progress. It’s a movement that:

Rejects modern problems because they require modern solutions. Climate change? AI automation? Wealth inequality? Nah, let’s just bring back coal mining and pretend the internet doesn’t exist.

Clings to economic policies that haven’t worked since rotary phones were a thing. Sorry, but manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back just because you slapped a red hat on it and screamed at China. We’re in a digital economy now. Adapt or perish.

Tries to put women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ folks “back in their place.” A lot of MAGA nostalgia is really just white, straight, conservative men missing a time when they didn’t have to consider anyone else’s existence. The dream is a Stepford Wives world where nothing ever changes, and everyone shuts up about their rights.

Worships a past that was only good for certain people. If you were white, rich, male, and straight, sure, maybe the 1950s were your golden age. But for literally everyone else, it was a time of oppression, marginalization, and quiet suffering beneath a white-picket-fence illusion.

MAGA’s Biggest Trick: Keeping You Scared of the Future

The people who sell you MAGA don’t want you to think about the future—because the future requires thinking.

It requires actual problem-solving, innovation, and adapting to new realities. Instead, they want you to panic. They need you to fear progress so much that you run back to them for comfort…

Like a toxic ex who convinces you that you’ll never do better.

They tell you diversity is the enemy—not the billionaires hoarding wealth while you drown in debt.

They tell you “woke culture” is ruining America—not corporate monopolies crushing workers, housing markets locking you out, or the fact that healthcare costs more than a used car.

They tell you the media is lying—but only about the things that make them look bad.

Fear is the ultimate political currency, and MAGA is minting it in bulk.

The more afraid you are of the scary, uncertain future, the easier it is to sell you a fake, sanitized past where America was somehow better, despite all evidence to the contrary.

You Can’t Drive Forward Staring in the Rearview Mirror

If we want to actually improve America, we have to stop cosplaying as a Norman Rockwell painting and start dealing with reality.

We need policies that actually address the present. We need Universal healthcare, student debt relief, and climate action. These aren’t “radical” ideas; they’re basic survival mechanisms for the world we live in now.

We need to invest in the future, not recreate the past. That means embracing tech, green energy, new job markets, and education reforms that prepare people for the world ahead, not some 1950s time loop.

We need to stop using nostalgia as an excuse for inaction. Missing the past is fine. Trying to rebuild it like some deranged historical reenactment? That’s how civilizations crumble.

The past is dead. The present is burning. The future is still up for grabs.

Read about the USPASA (The United Sovereign Prosperity & Sustainability Act) here.