The Daily Signal - Why the 1960s Are to Blame for America’s Cultural Crisis

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

On today's episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast," Tim Goeglein discusses his new book, "Stumbling Toward Utopia: How the 1960s Turned Into a National Nightmare and How We Can Revive the American Dream." Goeglein's book explores the dramatic cultural, social, and political shifts of the 1960s and how those changes continue to impact American society today. “The reason we're in the spiritual crisis that we are in across all of our institutions is because of the moral and social revolution of the 1960s,” he tells The Daily Signal. Goeglien, who serves as vice president of external and government relations for Focus on the Family, explores what he calls the many "stumbles" of the 1960s—from morality and religion to education and entertainment. “Progressives ultimately believe in the perfectibility of man and that it can all be socially engineered in places like Washington and Hollywood," Goeglein says. "But I demonstrate in 'Stumbling Toward Utopia' that this is a bunch of false promises.” He also shares his thoughts on how America can restore its moral foundation and revive the American Dream. “I believe already the seeds are being planted for a restoration," Goeglein says. "There are all kinds of things happening, and I believe that the American Dream will be restored.” Listen to hear his insights on education, family values, and the role of government in shaping the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, I mean, even the name of it, that Washington, in a matter of frankly, 14 months, all of these massive pieces of legislation, the overtaking of schools, the wrecking of families, the wrecking of the urban areas, the great society, which is derived directly from part New Deal and part of Woodrow Wilson culminates in the 1960s. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, September 20th. 25th. I'm your host, Rob Blewey. And those were the words of Tim Gagline, author of a new book called Stumbling Toward Utopia, how the 1960s turned into a national nightmare and how we can revive the American dream. It's no question the 1960s brought tremendous change for the United

States with consequences that still impact our society today. Gagline explores what he calls the stumbles of the 1960s, from morality and religion to education and entertainment, but also offers ideas to restore civil society today. In addition to writing the book, Gagline is also the vice president of external and government relations for focus on the family. Stay tuned for our interview right after this. The Heritage Foundation is the most effective conservative policy organization in the country. Every semester, our interns are a vital part of that mission. We pay competitively. We develop talent, and we give our interns access to some of the sharpest minds in the country. We're going on offense. So join us.

To learn more about the Young Leaders Program here at the Heritage Foundation, please go to heritage.org slash intern. Tim Gagline is the author of a new book called Stumbling Toward Utopia. Tim, thanks so much for joining us on The Daily Signal today. I'm looking forward to discussing this with you. I also want to thank you for the many contributions you've made over the years to the Daily Signal. You're a regular columnist for us, And certainly on this topic, I can't think of a more pressing and urgent discussion that we can have about what is going on in our country.

So thank you for being with us today. Rob, it's a great honor to be with you. Thanks for having me. You bet. So I always like to ask an author what it was that motivated you to invest the time to write a book. Obviously, a topic as important as this, what happened in the 1960s and the effects that we're still seeing on our culture today is quite significant. So how did you embark upon this book? Well, I have been at Focus on the Family as one of the vice presidents for 15 years, and I travel about a third of the time.

And regardless of where I travel in the country, whether I'm speaking to an ideologically left-wing audience or an ideologically right-wing audience or a non-ideological audience, Rob, almost with pinpoint predictability when you get to the Q&A after the remarks, people will say, say, how in the world did we get into this mess? In other words, they're trying to better understand how our country, culture, and civilization ended up at the moment that we're in. And by the way, they're not just talking about politics. They're talking about the overwhelmingly uneven time in which we find ourselves. And I have found, Rob, that very often that when it's parents or grandparents who are asking, they will often say something like, and I've never been concerned for my country and the country that I'm leaving to my kids or grandkids. And so after having heard this refrain over and over again, I remember sitting on an airplane, kind of scratching on an

airline napkin and questioning, where did we come to this point? Well, you know, what is the origin of the mess. And I decided to do my fourth book on the answer to that question. It's called Stumbling Toward Utopia. And the answer is the place that we got that really gave us this mess. The reason we're in the spiritual crisis that we are in across all of our institutions is because of the moral and the social revolution of the 1960s. If you want to trace the, you know, the kind of of origins of where we find the world in which we live. It really is what happened to America in the 1960s. And Tim, you do go through in quite some detail and you document some of those changes that took place. But take us back to the 1960s. Obviously, we're coming out of a period

of time when America had just won the Second World War. The 1950s are often looked to as this, period of time in our country where families were blossoming. And then you have the 1960s and you have all of these cultural changes that are happening, but you also have the government taking a much more active role in the lives of the American people. So walk us through some of those changes that took place and the consequences that happened as a result. Well, one of the things that I found, Rob, is that there is definitively a kind of in-air quotation marks Progressives history of the 1960s. And they very often, which is to say I'm speaking generally, and by the way, some excellent, you know, histories of the 60s written by progressives, but they often rooted in the assassination of John

Kennedy, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the assassination of Martin King, very important as catalyzers, no doubt of the 1960s. But what I found as a conservative in my own research is that if you want to understand the progressivism, the catalyzing effect that really comes to fruition in the 1960s, you have to look directly to the turn of the century and what was happening in America in the turn of the century to the 20th century. In politics, we had a U.S. President Woodrow Wilson who thought that the Constitution was outdated, that politics needed to be revolutionized, that checks and balances was really not a very good system for the United States of America. And he actually wrote about and spoke about the need for experts running the country.

In other words, citizens were kind of secondary, and he viewed citizens more as subjects. So if you look at the radicalization of politics and our public policy, look to Woodrow Wilson. John Dewey, another social engineer in education. He was very uncomfortable with education in the hands of local and regional folks, and he also didn't like traditional curriculum. He felt that schools were supposed to be social engineers. They were about the remaking of the New American. So if you want to look for the problems in radicalization of education,

look to John Dewey. The sexual revolution, what? Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist and a racist with the things that she thought about, you know, the natural nuclear family, the centrality of children and the goodness of the family. I mean, she was a total radical. And then as we get closer, if I may say, Rob, very quickly to the 60s themselves, things like the Port Huron statement to upend American higher education. And of course, we get to Norman Lear in the 60s and 70s and the radicalization, even of popular entertainment. So I go through all of this in stumbling toward utopia, but I do so in a way that is readable or readable and easy for people to grasp.

You do. It's excellent, Tim, and I appreciate it. It's a book that I find easy to consume and understand, given the complexities of all of those things that you just just talked. talked about. And so I do applaud you for doing so. And one of the reasons that I enjoy publishing you so often on the Daily Signal. Now, of course, in the 1960s, you had the expansion of government. You had a situation where the black family in particular has seen devastating consequences as a result of the increase in the welfare state and the fatherless crisis that we see in our country today. Yes. what were some of the ideas that the left had in mind and did they just go wrong or were these ultimately inevitable based on the policies that they put in place? Well, I'm thrilled that you

ask that because, as you know, I focus in stumbling toward utopia very specifically on the radicalization and the revolutionary nature of Lyndon Johnson's great society. I mean, even the name of it, that Washington, in a matter of, frankly, 14 months, all of these massive pieces of legislation, the overtaking of schools, the wrecking of families, the wrecking of the urban areas. I mean, the great society, which is, of course, derived directly from part New Deal and part of Woodrow Wilson culminates in the 1960s, you know, with Lyndon Johnson and what he intended to do. And I want to be very specific to your question. The late great Democratic senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, I had the honor of knowing him and working in the Senate in the same years that the man

that I worked for in the Senate when they were colleagues. And I worked there in the Senate for nearly a decade. And Pat Moynihan in the 1960s published a book. And this is really a shocking thing. He found that In 1965, 25% of all black Americans were born, you know, outside of marriage. That number today, Rob, is approaching 73%. Among Hispanic Americans, that number is well over 50%. And among native-born white people, that number is above 30%. In fact, the majority of babies born to women, ages 30 years of age and under, the majority of those babies are now born outside of marriage.

So the sexual revolution, which, by the way, was intended to give us the result I've just mentioned in that regard and deeply, unfortunately, was successful. And so Pat Moynihan was prophetic when he looked at this very disturbing social data, arising and beginning, germinating. in the 1960s and 70s to bring us to the point where we are at now. In fact, Senator Moynihan did a very important interview at the end of his very long service in public life. And he was asked, what is the most important development in your time in public life? We're talking about a span of more than 60 years. And he said that it was the coming a part of the family all over the country and the world. And it is directly related to the kind of thing that I'm writing about in

stumbling toward utopia. Because progressives ultimately believe in the perfectability of man and that it can all be socially engineered and experimented with in places like Washington and Hollywood. We are talking to Tim Gaglain, who's the author of this new book, Stumbling Toward Utopia, how the 1960s turned into a national nightmare and how we can revive the American and dream. Tim, of course, has spent many years at Focus on the Family and as a contributor to the Daily Signal, we appreciate all of his expert commentary. And Tim, let's pick up on your answer there to the last question and explain some of the other consequences that we've seen as a result of the Great Society program. So you talked about how today 73% of black families

don't have children are born out of wedlock. And we know, including your work at Focus on the family, the consequences of not having a two-parent household and the disintegration of the nuclear family. And so what have we seen as a result and what are some of the consequences for the children who are in these types of situations? Well, may I say that whether you're an economic conservative or a social conservative, whether you are a libertarian, whether you are a progressive, a far-left, whatever the label that could be affixed, you know, I think, and I pray that all of can agree. For all the things we can disagree about, we can all agree that the breakdown of the American family is extremely expensive. It's expensive in tax dollars, federal, state, local, regional,

but far beyond the sheer cost of the breakdown of the natural nuclear family is the terrible impact on the rising generation of young Americans. Here we are, only in 2024, the 60s got rolling in the late 60s, and now, Rob, we have the lowest fertility rates in American history. We have the lowest marriage rates in American history. We have quite measurably a loneliness epidemic. And it's not from nowhere. I mean, it is rooted in the kind of layer upon layer social progressivism that I evoke in stumbling toward utopia. You know, when, And people like Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger, John Dewey, by the way, I write at length about the Port Huron statement, almost forgotten now by intellectuals and by the average man and woman. But the Port Huron statement was essentially a blueprint for the radicalization of the United States, an attack on so much that we hold dear.

And that was only in the late 60s. And so it's not as if this all kind of just happened or just evolved. One of the things that I demonstrate in stumbling toward utopia is that the people who were utopians and the early progressives, they had a plan. And their plan, you know, has in many corridors has been executed successfully. But I am an inveterate optimist. I mean, not a confetti to the wind optimist, but I'm an optimist. And I believe already the seeds are being planted for a restoration. And I think we're seeing this on multiple fronts. A huge increase in homeschooling. A huge increase in charter schools, school choice. We see people who have never darkened the doorstep, you know, of a school board meeting. Of a sudden, they're running for the school board. They're interested in what the curriculums say. We now have legislators. at every level of government saying, you know what, maybe we need to limit social media and

cell phone use, smartphone use for our young people. I mean, are we really that late on what is so obvious? So, I mean, there are all kinds of things happening. One last one that I think is very obvious, which is the impact on the social revolution in something that we as Americans love, sports, whether it's our kids, whether it's collegiate, et cetera, et cetera, the frontal assault on girls' sports, women's sports, the things that we saw at the Olympics, you know, boxing matches with women being punched in the face. I mean, you know, we're better than this. And I believe that people of goodwill on both sides of the cultural divide can say, if we can't agree on these issues, what are the ones we can agree on? And I think some of the things that I bring forward and stumbling

toward Utopia are some of the things that we can agree on and work together on. Well, I agree. And I'm so glad that you pivoted to solutions and talking about your optimistic vision because, yes, there are a lot of problems that we could focus on and certainly well worth documenting. But as we've even seen in the course of this 2024 presidential election, there has been increased talk about the importance of the importance of that. having an intact home, the importance of having more children for our economy. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance certainly have emphasized that point repeatedly. So what are some of those other ideas that you would really encourage Americans, maybe that they could do in their own lives

and with their own families, but also if there is a role for government, what should it be? May I say, I think increasingly conservatives who have always rightfully been wary of the state and conservatives, I believe, will continue to be wary of the state. We have said where are places where it's moral, legal, ethical, and responsible to incentivize the institutions in America that give us the kind of country that young people want to live in? How can we incentivize marriage? How can we, you know, incentivize children? how can we make marriage last? You know, government, Rob, is never going to save a marriage, per se. It's

never going to tuck a child into bed at night. And the thing is, you know, even with the moment that we find ourselves in, we don't want to come up with the proverbial conservative version of the great society. And I'm quite confident we're not going to do that. But there are responsible ways, and I write about them in the book, where we can look holistically. at the institutions that serve us and the rising generation of young Americans, and we can pour ourselves into that. I think that that is all to the good. And I think we're going to find as conservatives that there are people of goodwill, you know, who are very interested in our ideas, who are increasingly saying, I think we should listen to, or at least absorb some of these

better policies regarding the way forward. And then I think, may I say in popular culture, I think we are already seeing in popular culture things that uphold marriage, that uphold children, that uphold intactness. We have seen just in the course of the last three years a large number of movies that have come out that are the complete opposite of the Norman Lear era of kind of the transgressiveness in popular entertainment. Whoever would have thought, for instance, that we would be seeing a new movie on Ronald Reagan that upholds the goodness of marriage,

that upholds the goodness of integrity and character and public people, and people are flocking to see it. I don't want to date us too much, but just with three or four weeks of this film, it's already grossed well over $25 or $26 million. with barely a marketing budget. So, you know, there are a number of popular television series, and I could go on and on, that really have caught hold because there are millions of people who want something better. Tim, it's so true.

And I would like to pick up on a point that you mentioned earlier. And that was all of the parents who are getting active and involved in their community, whether it be through running for school board or just showing up at school board meetings and participating. I think it's so crucial. As you know, somebody who's spent my entire career in the conservative media world, I often encourage young people who are coming out of college to pursue a career in journalism because, frankly, we are so outnumbered by the left when it comes to being in positions, not just in our own daily signal and all of the great conservative media outlets, but other established media outlets.

And I think your point about Hollywood is a great one. I think that the Reagan movie and others like it show. on that Angel Studios is producing are generating an audience that is craving that type of content and message. So I share your optimism in that regard. It's hard work, but we need to keep doing it. You know, the New York Times Magazine, which is not known necessarily as being friendly to conservatism, recently did a gigantic essay on the increasing amount of excellent content in Christian and conservative entertainment. We have a major series that's coming along on the importance of King David, who, of course, is the author of the Psalms, and many other things. You know, we at Focus on the Family

have been so pleased to be a part of and to watch the Chosen series Bloom. And, you know, it's not just Christians and conservatives who are benefiting from this kind of better entertainment. I remember a number of years ago, Rob, reading a small book by our friend Robbie George at Princeton. And the title is perfect. It's conscience and its enemies. And Robbie demonstrated in this small gem of a book how we are confronting what he calls the dogmas of liberal secularism. And one of the things that Robbie points out in which I pick up on in stumbling toward utopia is, we're in the process of exchanging this remarkable culture of ours. I mean, America is an exceptional, extraordinary country, a part of the best of Western culture, and that because so often

progressives are seeking to impose on us this kind of hollow liberal secularism, it's like we're watching them attempt to replace this rich culture with a culture of nothing. And nihilism and moral relativism only gets you so far. And I think that that is part of the reason that the rising generation of young Americans, Americans of faith, no faith, are seeking, they have lived through an enormous amount of brokenness and unevenness. They want something better. They're impatient for all the right things. And I think when they learn in stumbling toward utopia, that progressivism

and social engineering is not the way to go. It's a bunch of false promises that there is a better way. And I think that that's part of restoring the American dream. And I believe that the American dream will be restored. We're going through a tough period now, but I think better days are ahead. Well, I certainly agree with you, Tim. And I do hope that that younger generation follows exactly the advice that you just laid out here. Again, we're talking to Tim Gagline, author of a new book called Stumbling Toward Utopia. You can find it wherever books are sold. Tim, in the remaining time that we have together, can you share with our viewers and listeners about Focus on the Family, the work that you do, and how they can support the outstanding efforts that you're making to help and encourage families? Well, thank you so much.

Focus on the Family is one of my favorite topics. You know, I was in a meeting when I first came to focus on the family 15 or 16 years ago. It was one of the very first meetings that I attended at our headquarters in Colorado Springs. And I remember a man beginning his remarks by saying that focus on the family is the ministry in America, which has a near perfect name. Because even if you've never heard of it, you immediately know what it is in a few simple words, that we focus on the family. And that's what we do. We are a very large evangelical ministry, and we preoccupy ourselves in the best sense with marriage, family parenting, human life, religious liberty, conscience rights, parental rights, and the battle over the pronouns. We are one ministry with about 40 front doors.

We have a top faith-based daily broadcast focus on the family with Jim Daly. We're heard by about 7 million people a week. We are the largest faith-based program on the air every day, five days a week. And we have a global division. We have a focus on the family as a presence in over 130 countries, and we have offices abroad as well. So we are all about shoring up, you know, marriage, family, and parenting. We are rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's aptly central to what it is we do. And we want to reach out and do to everybody. You don't have to be a Christian to come to focus on the family and to benefit from us. We are, by God's grace, resource rich. And we've learned that in the era that we're in, the problems in marriage, in families, among parents, is very, very acute. And focus on the family is the best single one-stop shop for all. all kinds of the best resourcing and information, counsel and help to help families thrive. That's what it is we seek to do.

And it's really the honor of a lifetime to be a part of it. Well, thank you for sharing that. And we're so grateful for the work that you do and the fact that you can reach so many people, as you said, across the globe with that encouraging message. Again, Tim, any closing words or how people can get a copy of the book or follow your work? Anything you'd like to leave them with? That's very kind of you. You know, Stumbling Toward Utopia, it's my fourth book. It's widely available. It's widely available in bookstores online. There's an audio version of it. I was born in the last year of the baby boom, Rob, so when I see people in airports and wherever, and they say, I'm listening to your book, you know, that always, you know, sort of tickles the ears. But no, it's stumbling toward Utopia is very widely available. I hope people will read it. enjoy it, share it with other people. And above all, I hope it's a good tool in our toolbox. That's why I wrote it.

I want people to be able to read it, absorb the impact of the moral and social revolution, and then say, okay, now that we really understand how we got into this mess, what can we do better going forward? That's what it's all about. As I said, I'm an inveterate optimist. And my view is that there is a better way forward, and we're going to do it. Tim Gageline, thanks so much for spending time with the Daily Signal today. And again, thank you for your contributions to the Daily Signal. We'll make sure that we leave a link. So if any listeners or viewers would like to see some of your commentaries,

they will be able to easily do so. We wish you the best and make sure that we'll promote this book and get the good word out about stumbling toward Utopia. Thank you so much, Rob. I am a huge fan of the Daily Signal and all that you and your team are doing. Thank you so much. you are genuinely indispensable. Thank you.

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