I also lived through both, and I think he’s got it right. I made the first comment addressing it in this thread, actually.
Maybe it depends on your age. To me, 80s = Bon Jovi, and 90s = Nirvana. In the 80s, it seemed like everyone was sure democracy would spread everywhere, and world peace was just around the corner. In the 90s, it seemed like everyone was sure the world was “going to hell in a handbasket” and we were all doomed.
The threat of nuclear world war being (apparently) off the table, the form of doom that caught America’s attention in the '90s was ecodisaster – which had the advantage of being (kindasorta arguably) something an individual could actually do something about, whether political activism or just recycling – and any form of working to stave off doom is a form of optimism.
I think it would be hard to argue that the 80s didn’t bring about a major sea change with regards to economics & wars in the USA.
In the 50s-70s, there was intense pressure and progress towards policies focused on stable growth, social equality and the common good, and an ever-increasing repudiation of military buildup. We got the interstate highway system, civil rights laws, an environmental protection agency and major conservation laws, spaceflight, antiwar protests and strategic arms reductions.
By the end of the Regan era, all this was gone, and the foundation laid for policies and perceptions that continue to this day. Unfettered free-market capitalism became elevated to an unquestionable item of faith culminating in “greed is good”. What’s bad for business is bad for America, roadblocks on civil rights get federally codified, social programs and scientific research are wasteful “big government”, and nothing less than a large and sophisticated military will do. The major projects of the 80s-00s have been gigantic military expenditures, rolling back of regulations from environmental to financial, wide cuts in education, research and social programs, tax cuts targeted at the wealthy (from capital gains to income) finally leading up to two long wars of empire building, which strangely still have significant popular support despite being just as much of a failure in their goals as the one in the 60s was.
The two eras have major differences in the course of the nation.
The 80s and 90s can be summed up in jokes. The joke of the 80s is that it will end with the end of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, the USSR, and all that -- the joke being, no one except perhaps Ferris Buller or Regina Belmont-types know *that*. The joke of the 90s is that it will end with Y2K (a non-event) and then, in the 2000s, there will be the absolute event, 9/11 – the joke being, no one except the “terrorists” and a few others know that. Fear those who know what the 2000s are and what the joke of the 2000s is about.
Well, along with it came an ever increasing military buildup. Splendid isolationism has never been a concept, America has been a martial state for at least half a century. Maybe the precise moment could be when their military budget reached 40% of the global expenditure on military.
50s: Korea, first troops in Vietnam, Haiti, Italy (Gladio)
60s: Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Greece (Gladio), Cambodia
70s: Vietnam, Cambodia, Yom Kippur, Nicaragua
I am currently 53, so like some said, the roaring gay 90’s as in fun and people just optimistic was the norm. As far as I can recall, people were waiting for the weekend.
Even tho I thought we were struggling, my girlfriend and I still managed to take 5 vacations of a week to five days in either Gulf Shores Alabama, or Orange Beach Florida. Sigh… good times.
Back home it was, “let’s take the boat to the bayou this weekend!” A small aluminum boat mind you, but you could always jump into someones larger boat.
Of course with the recent survey “study?”, Your 30’s are supposed to be the happiest times of your life. I wholeheartedly agree.
Party on Garth! Do not worry about the stupid crap. Make this your decade.