So, were the eighties and nineties great decades

[boston bean]

compared to 2000-2022?

Even with Reagan I would have to say yes. I don’t think my opinion on it is nostalgia.

[Elessar Zappa]

1. Some ways yes, some ways no.

Despite some recent backsliding, minorities of all different stripes are better off now than they were a few decades ago. On the other hand, our democracy is in a much worse position than it was back then.

[First Speaker]

2. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times...

...like all times...

[Kali]

3. were

[boston bean]

4. TYVM. It is the dang iPad!

[Kali]

9. ...

I don't often do that, but was sure you knew better.

[beaglelover]

5. Absofuckinglutely! Especially the 80s! That decade ROCKED!

If you weren't able to be successful in the 80s, you suck at life! LOL!

[maxsolomon]

6. Things are more like they are now than every before.

The 90s didn't have Russian Fascism looming over us, so I guess that's good.

[eShirl]

7. war on drugs vs normalization of cannabis

this time period does have its advantages

[Celerity]

8. No.

[Ilsa]

10. 1980s: "Greed is good."

I think I liked the 70s better because I think intentions were better.

But I think society now is better than 40+ years ago.

[Ace Rothstein]

11. The crack epidemic was pretty awful and violence was out of control until the early 90's.

The late 90's were pretty great until school shootings started to be an annual occurrence.

[oasis]

12. IMHO, the 90s w/Bill Clinton was almost heaven. The 80's were far from it. nt

[brush]

21. Agreed. Everybody was working. The cold war ended with the fall...

of the Soviet Union. The iron curtain was destroyed, the bomb threat was off our backs. Times were good. The big worry back then was Y2K and what was going to happen as computers were now in the workplace and home.

Then the republicans stole the '00 election and it went downhill from there as they ignored the warnings from the outgoing Dems that bin Laden and radical extremists were going to try again to bring down the World Trade Center...AGAIN.

Of course it happened and suddenly the republicans couldn't ignore it anymore so they had their excuse for starting a war and they took it.

We had some calm during the Obama years but before and after his admin was one debacle followed by an even more ridiculous one trying to go fascist.

[oasis]

25. Staying the Clinton/Gore course, would've resulted in a much better world

today.

In the post Clinton years, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Fox News, and other corporate funded right wing propagandist, easily manipulated a dumbed down American public.

[brush]

33. Yeah, we wouldn't have had the Iraq war. Gore would've tackled...

climate change with initiatives that would've generated thousands of jobs. Good times would've kept rolling.

[SheilaAnn]

13. The music was much, much better.

[boston bean]

31. And the hair was bigger, but maybe not better!

[Shermann]

14. If music is your yardstick, definitely

I can't prove the music was better back then, but I know it's true.

[Sancho]

15. All I can say is that the 80s and 90s were boring compared to the 60s and 70s...

..but I'm not complaining. I had a roof and a paycheck and stuff to do.

After the 1960s (my family actually built a bomb shelter in the back yard), I'd hate to go out in a nuclear war in my old age. At least Biden is sane.

[dawg]

16. As I was telling someone a few days ago ...

we were kids. All the terrible things were still happening, we just didn't notice them.

In many ways, things have continued to improve throughout the years.

Well, at least up to the point where we lost Bowie. Everything pretty much went to hell after that.

[AZProgressive]

17. I like the nineties

Don’t remember the 80s but I hate the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s.

[brush]

18. The Clinton years, especaily the late '90s after the fall of the...

Soviet Union, were good. Everybody was working if you wanted a job. People were making money, then the election was stolen from Gore and it was all downhill after that.

Bush and PNAC looked for every excuse they could to start a war to avenge his daddy and they did. W was the worse president until the repugs outdid themselves and stole the election for trump in 2016.

The Obama years were a relatively calm respite sandwiched between dumb and extremely dumber periods.

[Efilroft Sul]

19. It depends on what is being measured and compared, of course.

But the promise of the 21st century and the world being a better place, as sold to those of us alive in the 80s and 90s, has been completely betrayed by the worst hobgoblins of politics, media, and the stupidest and cruelest among us.

I have few good things to say about the last 21+ years, and so much in this world has taken major steps backward. Surely, I cannot be the only person who thinks this.

[fescuerescue]

20. Only bad decade in my lifetime has been the 2020s

I don't remember the 1960's, but it put us on the Moon

The 1970's were kinda lame, but not horrible.

80s,90, 00 and 10's were pretty good.

the 2020's? Well I hope they get better.

[ForgedCrank]

22. Well, I was

very young then so my opinion is biased for sure.
I cared nothing of news and politics, or the struggles of living at that age and was far too busy out exploring the world, wading in mud, swimming in ponds, and general kid stuff.
By that measure then yes, the 80's and 90's were far superior from my personal perspective. I had a blast when I was a kid.

[Ron Obvious]

23. In hindsight, yes.

But we thought they were pretty crap at the time. At least compared to previous decades, I seem to remember.

Of course I'm just a chronic malcontent anyway.

[brush]

34. Malcontent is good. Nothing would change without you guys.

[Hugin]

24. I'd lean toward agreement only because people weren't constantly coming into my home...

Via the information highway trying to rob me.

They had to physically go door to door.

[SYFROYH]

26. 1980 -1999 greater than 2000 - 2019.

No in all ways, of course, but the Trump era was 2015-2020.

[Javaman]

27. it's always a mixed bag

some good, some bad, some truly horrible things.

I think that can be said about every decade.

[Torchlight]

28. I enjoyed the eighties an order of magnitude more than the 90s-- but I was apolitical at the time

I graduated in '84, so the eighties were my salad days. In my case, it's difficult if not impossible to think about those sweet, summer Texas days without my biases creeping in. Member's Only jackets, acid washed blue jeans, every song had an intro hook to it, and we'd hang out after school at whoever's house had MTV and no parents that afternoon.

Boone's Farm, Dungeon and Dragons, and a school parking lot filled at lunch with the smell of pot, and junked-out Camaro's, Charger's and Firebirds all trying to look more cherry than they were.

The nineties? The nineties were the first of what has since been, 'just another decade' to me up to this point.

[lame54]

29. The 21st century blows

[Boomerproud]

36. Yes it does.

Life was supposed to get better and all hell has broken lloose.i feel terrible for the young people like my grand nephews and nieces.

[Retrograde]

30. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times

IOW, pretty much like most other decades. On the plus side: Glasnost, Eastern Europe started to phase out Soviet influence and look westward, human rights continued their slow march forward in many parts of the world. On the minus side: Reagan, Thatcher, AIDS

[JHB]

32. The 80s and 90s still had the basic post-WW2 order, even as it was running out of steam

In this century many more self-imagined visionaries saw opportunities to try to impose their pet new World Order (the neocons in the Middle East, conservative zealots seeing their big chance to cap off what they'd been building since the 70s, Putin trying to remake a Russia-centered empire, the rise of China, etc.).

[IcyPeas]

35. I think so. but honestly I never used to follow politics as much back then.

ignorance was bliss.