Nolte: How Donald Trump Killed Off the 1960s

You get to a certain age and you are fairly certain you have seen it all. For example, I have already witnessed a man walk on the moon, a president resign, America lose a war, the space shuttle explode, the Soviet Union collapse, a president impeached, a tied presidential race, the Twin Towers fall, and a billionaire real estate magnate elected president without a lick of political or military experience. But who would have thought we would live to see the day a Donald Trump could kill off the 1960s?

That is exactly what has happened over the last ten days — Trump killed off the 1960s. Not the worst of it. The social horrors birthed in the ’60s; the fallout that never ends with drug abuse, the welfare state, and loveless sex will always be with us. You can never put evil back in the bottle.

The good things that came out of the ’60s — Trump killed almost all of that.

What have we learned over the last ten days?

Oh, only that the Obama administration launched a counter-intelligence operation against a rival presidential campaign complete with spies, wiretaps, unprecedented unmasking, media leaks, and FISA warrants based on lies.

None of that, however, is surprising. Government is corrupt, especially the federal government, most especially the unelected bureaucrats in the intelligence community. After living through Watergate, Iran-Contra, Billary selling the Lincoln bedroom, no WMD in Iraq, and Barry weaponizing the IRS and running guns into Mexico, I am well aware incompetence and corruption are the government’s default positions.

Here is what I never thought I would see…

The children of the ’60s — you know, the hippies — and their ideological offspring in academia, politics, and, most especially, the media, are now not only okay with a sitting president’s weaponizing the intelligence community against a rival presidential campaign; they are all rolling over like whipped dogs to believe everything the intelligence community tells them, most especially when it is coming from the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI.

Basically, Trump has driven the hippies and their offspring so crazy they are not only A-okay with the CIA’s spying on American citizens, totally cool with FBI spies infiltrating a rival campaign, and feeling warm all over about wiretaps, unmasking, and lying to federal judges, they do not want any of this investigated.

The other day, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame was on CNN fuming over the fact that there will now be an investigation of the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the FBI, after it was discovered they are all guilty of spying on the political rival of a sitting president.

Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want the watchmen watched. Carl freakin’ Bernstein is swallowing every treat being fed to him by the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI. Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want an investigation, does not want to learn anything more than what he is being told (by the CIA!), and does not want the public to know anything more.

And if you look across the vast horizon with the rare exception of an Alan Dershowitz and Glenn Greenwald, all the hippies are siding with and swallowing whole everything told to them by the same CIA that secretly bombed Cambodia, siding with and swallowing whole everything told to them by the same FBI that spied on Rev. Martin Luther King.

After the civil rights movement, the best thing to come out of the ’60s was a healthy skepticism of our national intelligence apparatus and a  vigilance against its abuses. The era of the unquestioning ’50s was finally over. But now, because of Trump, all of that has vanished. The hippies have become the squares, the round haircuts, the unquestioning white bread, middle class, Ward Cleaver 50s dads who blindly salute their G-Men.

Do not misunderstand me, I am not blaming Trump. After all, in this equation, it is Trump who is the radical, the civil rights crusader, the young Carl Bernstein taking on The Man, pushing for transparency from the CIA and FBI, demanding truth and accountability from the establishment.

But it is Trump’s mere presence, his very being that has twisted his political enemies into something unrecognizable. This pageant of hippies lining up single file to serve as stooges for the FBI and CIA, that is something I never thought I would see.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.