The Golden Rage

#3 laments the darkness:

[A]ll I could think was that there used to be this non-militaristic, generally peace-loving country full of earnest, well-meaning folks, and then . . . those people became subjects to the greatest military power ever, run by a military-industrial complex with ties so close to Congress (and the executive) that actual democracy became impossible.

OK, but when exactly was that? When was the golden age? If WWII was the serpent in the garden, we must be talking about prior history. 1930s? Seems unlikely. 1920s "normalcy"? Really? You want to bring back Harding, Coolidge and Hoover? The heyday of the Klan? 1910s? WWI may have been shorter lived and more successful than this war, but it was also more deadly and provoked much more civil unrest. The affronts to civil liberties tracked closely with today's and may have been worse. I guess the 1900s weren't too bad, but Teddy was pretty imperialist, as WilsonDeGreat points out. Before that, we've got Spanish-American War, Social Darwinism, Civil War and Reconstruction, manifest destiny, and the southern slave power, etc.

I'll concede that there have been some relatively peaceful and prosperous moments along the way. The era of Good Feeling comes to mind. And there have been moments of great suffering and ultimate triumph: the Civil War, the Depression, and WWII. Would any of those eras meet #3's criteria? I doubt it. Did #3 catch Ken Burns's elegiac tone and miss the struggle that is its source? Maybe. One more theory: #3 misses the golden age because we've just left one. Using #3's criteria, the 1990s have to be considered one of the best decades in American history. Bush inherited a benevolent hegemon at the peak of its prosperity and power, and he pissed it all away for vicious partisan gain. When, if ever, has this country been wealthier, less divided, and more competently governed than the 1990s? Given its pettiness and pop culture triviality, it's a hard decade for which to feel a weepy nostalgia. But what beats it?