I was put in a time capsule in 1955. Just opened up and got out last week.

[TeamProg]

I tell ya, the future ain't what it used to be!

This new world is like a mixture of the worst things from my past added to new even worse things:

Viral pandemic is growing.

Minorities are still struggling.

Women are still struggling.

Too much of our budget is going to the D.O.D.

Income taxes on the wealthy are lower than ever, debt is higher than ever.

Education is still hard to come by.

Lowest wages are even lower.

Can no longer buy a house if you work at a local furniture store.

Gas is still highly subsidized and too cheap.

The Klan is now militarized and with no need to hide under masks and robes.

Vets are treated even worse.

School teachers are now a hated class of people.

Monopolies are in complete control of financial markets.

Only the wealthiest have no reason to worry.

Media is worse and dividing families even more.

Can't believe we failed to see the climate change issue coming.

So, what happened to the Republican Party?

[ret5hd]

1. My suggestion: go back in.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

2. Nothing

The republican party has always been a haven for the dregs of society,now they are just in the open about how evil they are.

[TeamProg]

6. Well, actually the Repubs were the liberal, big gov't party in the 1800's

Dems were states' rights, pro-slavery. Lincoln's new Republican party were the most liberal party in the nation.. Parties switched ideologies somewhere around 1920.. Coolidge / Hoover were early conservative Repubs.. Teddy R, one of the last liberal Repubs..

Above is approximate on how one defines "conservative" and "liberal".

[Walleye]

7. Yes. Don't forget Senator Joe McCarthy. I guess we pretended he was an anomaly

[FakeNoose]

3. In the 1950's income taxes on the wealthy were NOT low

Income taxes on the wealthy are lower than ever, debt is higher than ever.

The wealthy - we call them one-per-centers now - were in the 90% bracket then. Now they pay almost nothing in taxes. They pay lawyers and accountants lots of money to get them out of paying taxes. All in all it would have been cheaper if they just paid Uncle Sam, so go figure.

[TeamProg]

8. We are in agreement but I think you mis-read my post. Sort of opposite world happening here.

""Income taxes on the wealthy are (NOW, as in "last week&quot lower than ever, debt is higher than ever. ""

See what I meant?

[FakeNoose]

11. OK - Well done!

[louis-t]

4. Republican Party sold out to the highest bidder.

Are increasingly desperate to remain in power.
Are killing people to prove how it's always someone else's fault.
Are bowing down and worshiping a 300 lb. golden idol.
After throwing mentally ill people out onto the street, they are now complaining there are too many mentally ill people on the street.
Refuse to vote for disaster relief unless it is their state that is flattened.
Refuse to increase pay for the poorest while the richest are drowning in money.
Refuse to increase pay for the poorest and try to stop them from collecting food assistance.
After presiding over 6% unemployment, now 4% seems to mean no one wants to work.
After refusing to do anything about a worldwide plague, they now blame someone who IS trying to do something about a worldwide plague.
I could go on for hours.

[TeamProg]

10. I know.. it can go on and on.. n/t

[hedda_foil]

9. Most of your facts wouldn't have any relevance at all to most Americans in 1955.

They were worried about the Russians and the bomb. Pay was good, the rich paid big money on taxes. Media was believed. Families weren't divided. Vets were treated well. Education was cheap. The DOD protected people from the evil Russkies. Gas was 25-29 cents a gallon. Economically, everything was great. Whites didn't think about minorities much if at all. Women were supposed to be happy homemakers and the propaganda sold virtually everyone. Antibiotics cured almost all the old killers. No one knew about viral pandemics. Mumps, measles and chicken pox were normal.

You get a few things right but you obviously didn't come from 1955.

[TeamProg]

12. True, no one in 1955 could see the future of course. So, wouldn't be relevant anyway.

Polio was a threat in the '50s, though.

I had to double-check and sure enough::

In the 20th century, it became one of the most worrying childhood diseases in these areas.[10] The first polio vaccine was developed in the 1950s by Jonas Salk.[11] Soon after, Albert Sabin developed an oral vaccine, which has become the world standard.[12]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio

[hedda_foil]

16. You're right, of course, and then Salk and Sabin fixed it (from a '50s point of view, of course).

[Donkees]

13. They knew about the Great Pandemic of 1918

[hedda_foil]

15. Not so much (other than old folks) and practically ancient in the new modern world of the 1950s.

I was born in 1945 and teach the '50s, '60s and '70s. Life in the Fifties was a different world from both past and future decades in countless ways.

[Donkees]

17. Those members of my extended family who experienced the 1918 pandemic were about middle aged ...

in the fifties, and they did pass down a lot of oral history. The United States was prepared for the 1957 pandemic thanks to Maurice Hilleman, and it seems pandemic conversations resurfaced in those families and enfolded into the oral history.

[Donkees]

14. Sh-Boom Sh-Boom

[ThoughtCriminal]

18. And how is President Eisenhower?

Me: Sorry, he's dead.
You: Oh my God, that means Nixon is President!

[TeamProg]

20. I like Ike, I also like Mike&Ikes

Yummy fruit candy chews!

Kind of like Hot Tomales.

[Rhiannon12866]

19. Ike won again in 1956: