# Is the 60s "counterculture" responsible for a lot todays "alt right?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 22, 2022, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125 "2022-08-22T22:52:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/21 "2022-08-23T15:01:33Z")
I suspect that if you polled the surviving participants of, say, the 1969 [Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moratorium_to_End_the_War_in_Vietnam), you’d find that at least a narrow majority of them voted for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/22 "2022-08-23T15:33:28Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I suspect that if you polled the surviving participants of, say, the 1969 [Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moratorium_to_End_the_War_in_Vietnam), you’d find that at least a narrow majority of them voted for Trump. I suspect that that is bullshit. Got any supporting evidence for your suspicions? I mean, adults who protested the Vietnam War in 1969 would all have been over 65 in 2016. Of the entire 65+ electorate in 2016, [only about 53% voted for Trump.](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/) Why on earth would you suspect that a majority of anti-Vietnam-War protestors would be among them? Anecdotal evidence from posters in this thread, plus actual research [such as this study of sixties activists twenty years on,](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2748739.pdf) suggests that people who were active in liberal causes in the sixties mostly continue to support liberal positions, although they may have become less radical in their views. I just don’t see how you think that tendency would end up turning most Vietnam War protestors into Trump voters. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/23 "2022-08-23T15:46:50Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > To clarify: By the “old left” I meant the stereotypical commies of the fifties/early sixties. Humorless, insistent on unwavering 100% support for the doctrine de jure, etc etc. That description fits the “doctrinaire” school of both the left and the right (just like in the 50s and 60s.) As had been noted upthread, the more you get to the fringes of the spectrum, the more both sides resemble each other. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/24 "2022-08-24T23:13:50Z")
I have noticed a general trend among people who are not particularly socially / politically aware perceiving themselves as more radical in their youth than they likely were. I think most older Trump - Qanon -alt right types that think they moved that way from what they perceive as left, probably weren’t all that left or actually grounded in such principles when they were younger. I have a good friend from my youth that has gone very conservative/ anti science / anti vax. He was never really interested in politics or social causes in his youth. He liked the music, wore the clothes, liked the drugs, but never had much opinion on the issues. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/25 "2022-08-26T16:50:14Z")
Yes, if I was going to point to any historical movement that laid the groundwork for what we see today I would say the [John Birch Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society#2000%E2%80%93present), and McCarthy’s conspiracy theory about 205 (or 57 or 81) communists in the state department, which clearly pre-date the 60’s counterculture. From the John Birch wiki link above: > The JBS was associated with the Trump presidency by political commentators such as [Jeet Heer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_Heer) (now of _[The Nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nation)_ magazine), who argued while writing for _The New Republic_ in June 2016 that “[Trumpism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpism)” is essentially Bircherism. Trump confidante and longtime advisor [Roger Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone) said that Trump’s father [Fred Trump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Trump) was a financier of the JBS and a personal friend of founder Robert Welch Trump’s former Chief of Staff [Mick Mulvaney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Mulvaney) was the speaker at the John Birch Society’s National Council dinner shortly before joining the Trump administration. Former Congressman [Ron Paul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul) (R-Texas), has had a long and close relationship with the JBS, celebrating its work in his 2008 keynote speech at its 50th anniversary event and saying that the JBS was leading the fight to restore freedom. The keynote speaker at the organization’s 60th anniversary celebration was Congressman [Thomas Massie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Massie) (R-Kentucky.), who maintained a near-perfect score on the JBS’s “Freedom Index” ranking of members of Congress. Right-wing conspiracy theorist [Alex Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones), who hosted Trump on his [Infowars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infowars) radio show and claimed to have a personal relationship with the president, called Trump a “John Birch Society president” and previously said Trump was “more John Birch Society than the John Birch Society.” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/26 "2022-08-27T23:55:19Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > That description fits the “doctrinaire” school of both the left and the right (just like in the 50s and 60s.) As had been noted upthread, the more you get to the fringes of the spectrum, the more both sides resemble each other. However, I think that the fringe _economic_ left has little in common with the mainstream totalitarian right except in their orthodoxy. I think that the mainstream/alt right, which are the same these days, has a lot in common with both centrists and the social left, in that all of them are post-truth to an extent, with their alternative facts, insistence that both sides always are equally bad no matter the contrary evidence, and insistence that all stories are equally valid. However, these groups are not equal in their size or dangerousness. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/27 "2022-08-31T14:19:32Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > By the “old left” I meant the stereotypical commies of the fifties/early sixties. That’s exactly what the name “Old Left” (capitalized) refers to. Although they’re mainly associated with their growth period in the 1930s, their era continued through to the early '60s. I’m frankly astonished that no Dopers have recalled the well-known name “New Left”: Us oldsters saw it appear in our lifetimes; I remember watching while it was happening. The “Old Left” you correctly named only got that name with the rise of the New Left, whose origins are traced to SNCC and the Berkeley Free Speech movement, which quickly evolved into the anti-Vietnam War movement and then SDS. Even Bob Dylan distanced himself from his Old Left idols Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in 1964 because change was in the air. Read _Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture_ by Abbie Hoffman for the story of the Yippies. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/28 "2022-08-31T14:44:52Z")
Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger were “stereotypical commies”?! ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/29 "2022-08-31T15:05:24Z")
One could parse the historical use of the term “commie” as a snarl word used by the establishment. Much like how “liberal” is uttered with disgust by AM radio jocks more recently. It would have been used freely to describe labor movement types like Guthrie and Seger. But it would also be used to describe actual Marxist movement types, and those who joined the Communist Party in earlier decades before learning about the totalitarian antics of Stalin. So, “commie” was a fungible term and would have been applied liberally, so to speak, capturing Guthrie and Seger in it’s net. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/30 "2022-08-31T15:12:15Z")
Indeed, the term was used, then and now, by some of those on the right to describe anybody and/or everybody on the left. That broad use didn’t, and doesn’t, make it accurate. > [@Icarus](#): > > those who joined the Communist Party in earlier decades before learning about the totalitarian antics of Stalin A lot of people joined and/or favored the Communist Party early on who left it well before 1964. What they were in favor of wasn’t what that party had rapidly turned into. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/31 "2022-08-31T18:02:38Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger were “stereotypical commies”?! Seeger definitely and Guthrie maybe, I don’t know, was a card carrying member and followed the party line until, I think, the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact when communists stopped being anti-fascists. He was blacklisted because he refused to name names. ---
**Author:** ![Sooner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sooner/32/7875_2.png) [@Sooner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sooner)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/32 "2022-08-31T18:45:59Z")
Many of the MAGA types I know were fairly moderate, or even somewhat left of center; until the 2008 bank bailout. Their take away was; not only is government not helping me, it is actively using my money to help those far better off than I am. This fundamentally broke their trust in government, and it has just been a slippery slope downward since then. Some went more the Bernie route, but most broke toward MAGA And this college debt forgiveness just added fuel to the fire. Most of them never attended, so they see it as another case of giving their money to someone better off than themselves. I wouldn’t identify any of them as alt-right, but some are getting fairly adjacent ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/33 "2022-08-31T20:22:18Z")
> [@Sooner](#): > > so they see it as another case of giving their money to someone better off than themselves. Which is why they’re sending their hard earned money to Donald J Trump. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/34 "2022-08-31T20:35:18Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > Seeger definitely and Guthrie maybe, I don’t know, was a card carrying member and followed the party line until, I think, the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact when communists stopped being anti-fascists. Which, again, was well before 1964. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2022, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/35 "2022-09-01T04:53:13Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > Seeger definitely and Guthrie maybe For those that wish to read one take on this, > **[Pete Seeger | Early activism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger#Early_activism)** > > In 1936, at the age of 17, Pete Seeger joined the Young Communist League (YCL), then at the height of its influence. In 1942, he became a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) itself, but he left in 1949. > In the spring of 1941, the twenty-one-year-old Seeger performed as a member of the Almanac Singers along with Millard Lampell, Cisco Houston, Woody Guthrie, Butch Hawes and Bess Lomax Hawes, and Lee Hays. Seeger and the Almanacs cut several albums of 78s on Keynote and other labels: Songs f... > **[Woody Guthrie | Political views and relation to the Communist Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie#Political_views_and_relation_to_the_Communist_Party)** > > Guthrie never publicly declared himself a communist, though he was closely associated with the Party. Will Kauffman says, ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2022, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/36 "2022-09-01T07:21:07Z")
Well, Pete and Woody were a stereotype of the non-immigrant commie of the pre-60s commies. They lived right down the road from me in NY, in a neighborhood known as Red Row or Red Road in Croton. They were too right wing for the anarchists though. An old anarchist told me you couldn’t trust those commies in a game of pinocle so the anarchists moved several miles north to the next town to get away from them. My grandfather was an immigrant, a Worker’s Circle type communist. They believed in the fantastical concept of a communist worker’s paradise but tended to leave that concept behind as their own fortunes improved under the New Deal. Later the communist threat came from Paul Robeson, turns out red wasn’t the only color Americans were supposed to fear. Interesting little area of the country to live in, I lived in a small cottage for a while that had once been occupied by the FBI during the ‘Paul Robeson riots’ in the late 40s. Robeson was a union type communist. So there wasn’t one stereotype of American communists, and more than I’ve mentioned here. And that sorta undermines the whole concept of a stereotype. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/37 "2022-09-01T16:00:30Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Well, Pete and Woody were a stereotype of the non-immigrant commie of the pre-60s commies. Again: in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Not by 1964. For Seeger, anyway. For Woody it seems you have a point – though by 64 he was quite far gone from Huntington’s. And I don’t find any evidence that Dylan distanced himself from Woody; he was visiting him, and showed up for his memorial concert, coming out of a stretch of isolation to do so. ETA: Dylan moved his music in other directions, certainly. I don’t know that that had anything to do with Woody’s politics. He moved away from acoustic folk in general. > [@TriPolar](#): > > So there wasn’t one stereotype of American communists, and more than I’ve mentioned here. And that sorta undermines the whole concept of a stereotype. Which makes this whole branch of discussion rather useless, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/38 "2022-09-01T16:33:43Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Which makes this whole branch of discussion rather useless, I suppose. Perhaps others can get a better perspective on the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/39 "2022-09-01T17:48:38Z")
I thought the point of stereotypes was to put a simplifying glaze over a number of individual people, few if any of whom would fit the stereotype in person. Asking whether a particular person fit the stereotype of the group will seldom produce any meaningful answer. The pejorative stereotype is created by the outside observer. “Commies” covered everybody and anybody who was thought to heed or embody certain beliefs, attitudes, dress, or behaviors. Obviously, actual membership in the American Communist Party was sufficient, even if one was clean-shaven and dressed in a three-piece suit. But the reverse was also true. Anybody who didn’t conform with standard dress and appearance was liable to be lumped in with the true believers because any deviance was suspicious. Folk singers were consciously cleaned up for public acceptance in the late 1950s. The Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four, The Limeliters, The Chad Mitchell Trio, The New Christy Minstrels, and even the politely bearded men in Peter, Paul and Mary were deliberately draped in respectable outfits so that they didn’t fit the stereotype. Even Pete Seegar was clean-cut until late in his career, and so were his early groups The Almanac Singers and The Weavers. Stereotypes are pernicious. They don’t need facts to be born or thrive. The slightest overlap of the real world with their mental contructs is sufficient. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2022, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125/40 "2022-09-02T22:38:51Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > This. I and the gang I hung with during my misspent youth (with tie dyed shirts and love beads and peace necklaces) continue to support pretty liberal causes. This times two. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-60s-counterculture-responsible-for-a-lot-todays-alt-right/970125.md?page=3)