One Saturday morning in May, years ago, I was standing outside a grocery store handing out Tootsie Rolls for the Knights of Columbus. Our shifts lasted 90 minutes, and the weather was beautiful, so I found myself enjoying handing out a ubiquitous candy to raise money for our council.
An older man, roughly my dad's age, wearing a Korean War Veteran cap, stopped and reached for the candy I was holding out to him. Then he paused.
After exchanging pleasantries, I thanked him for his service. While he was waving away my words, he told me how, in a frozen foxhole between artillery barrages, he would suck on a rock-hard Tootsie Roll just to calm himself down until the shelling eased.
Forty-five years later, a single piece of candy brought the war rushing back; not the medals, speeches, or history books, but a small, ordinary piece of everyday life became a lifeline.
Nostalgia's power doesn't just recall the past; it binds us to it, sometimes with more force than reason or rhetoric ever could. Today, many conservative leaders understand that same influence.
President Donald Trump reminds Americans of distant promises made by politicians in history, which are now nearly forgotten. Vice President JD Vance evokes a time when local factories roared with activity, yet at dusk, porches filled, and faith was the pillar of communities.
Even on the local level, governors and mayors reach for those same symbols of tradition and family because of their heritage. If they have character and integrity, they take the lead when the unexpected pops up.
That's the lesson a soldier learned about the power a frozen Tootsie Roll holds: Memory steadies us when the ground begins to shake.
The Comfort of the Familiar
Nostalgia isn't a weakness; it was a strength for a soldier far away from home, and most importantly, for a country staggering under debt, war, and cultural upheaval, it's reassuring.
When President Trump tells us that America will be strong again, when Vice President Vance recalls the dignity that men and women shared while working in Ohio steel towns, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reminds us of the traditions of education grounded in parents and community, they're all reaching for the same emotional tether.
We need to believe the past still lives now.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt completely understood this concept. He didn't use his fireside chats to lecture the country on policy in the modern sense. He reminded Americans of a shared memory, providing an opportunity for a family to gather around a radio, and used the powers of a calming voice that made financial panic feel less frightening.
President Roosevelt invoked traditions by using images of thrift and sacrifice to reassure a nation that our country has worked through hardships before, and come out each time much stronger for the effort.
FDR wielded nostalgia as a comfort when it was greatly needed.
President Ronald Reagan mastered the same art, decades later, in his famous "Morning in America" ad campaign that didn't bury its message in policy details. The campaign showed ordinary Americans mowing lawns, going to church, and raising American flags outside tidy homes. It suggested that America wouldn't only return to prosperity, but to familiarity, a sense of stability that many feared lost during the 1970s malaise.
President Reagan's brand of conservatism clicked with people because it was fueled by a deeply optimistic nostalgia, not images of a weak surrender.
The past wasn't gone, promised Reagan, it was waiting to be reborn.
The Danger of Sweetness Alone
As much as candy isn't a meal, nostalgia isn't policy. A frozen Tootsie Roll temporarily calmed a soldier, but in no way did it change the trajectory of the Korean War.
When conservative leaders lean too heavily on the past's imagery, they risk serving sentiment without substance.
Today, our veterans need more than speeches; they need medical care and support that doesn't find them buried in red tape. Our labor force needs more than reminders of busy factories; they need local leaders to make the investment that generates opportunities. Families, now more than ever, need more than talk of tradition; when going up against a culture that erodes those same values, they need laws and institutions that back them up.
I believe today's politicians often refer to the good old days because it's easier to do so than to craft legislation and implement governance that improves conditions for families, allowing them to flourish again.
When they're out campaigning with familiar messaging, they fail to provide the follow-through nostalgia that's needed, turning it into a gimmick.
Nostalgia as Foundation, Not Escape
Nostalgia, when wielded the right way, anchors and inspires, reminding Americans that strength, faith, and sacrifice once defined our nation, and can again.
People were steadied long enough by FDR's fireside chats to have faith that recovery was possible. Reagan's imagery showed a nation, weary of ten tumultuous years, that the country's decline wasn't permanent.
Both men combined nostalgia with real action: programs, reforms, and policies, giving substance to the memory they evoked.
Today, conservatives must do the same. Trump's speeches about promises kept have to be tied to tangible reforms improving the lives of veterans, farmers, and workers. JD Vance's stories about the struggles in his life must translate into policies that revive the economies of small towns while strengthening families. Locally, leaders speaking of tradition and faith need to back it up with budgets and governance protecting schools, churches, and communities under constant siege from drugs, illegal immigrants, and crime.
A frozen piece of candy steadied a Korean War soldier long enough to be ready for the next barrage; the memory of a stronger America should steady conservatives long enough to build the future.
Memory matters, yet without courage and follow-through, it's nothing but an empty sweetness, when comfort melts way too fast in the mouth.
Trump’s Revival of Restorative Nostalgia
The political playbook of President Trump leans heavily into what scholars call restorative nostalgia — not just longing for better days, but rebuilding them, even if the vision of the past was selective or mythologized.
Make America Great Again isn't a throwback phrase; it's meant as a promise to restore something that was thought to be lost: economic strength, cultural identity, and national prestige.
Need examples? Okay.
Trump's speeches invoke pre-pandemic images of prosperity, law and order in neighborhoods, border security, and the continuous humming of domestic factories.
During his second inauguration, President Trump drew his speech from historical narratives, while referencing William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr., invoking imagery from the Revolutionary War, and using American music from bygone eras. His speech was less about policy in the moment and more about assembling fragments of myth and hope, a patchwork from a Golden Age.
Part of his planning involved using symbolic initiatives like re-establishing the 1776 Commission to promote patriotic education. Efforts like these don't just educate but also curate, shaping which version of America is taught, remembered, and felt worthy enough to return to.
The Strengths and Risks of Trump's Nostalgia Strategy
That strategy has strength. For many of us, feeling that globalization did its damn-level best to leave us behind, along with cultural and economic shifts, nostalgia provides some relief, especially in a chaotic world.
President Trump's brand of nostalgia provides something tangible we lean into, including flags, anthems, slogans, and imagery of old monuments — emotional, immediate, and a much-needed balm for anxiety.
To be fair, there's risk involved, too. Restorative nostalgia depends on selective memory; what's included, what's omitted, and what version of "great" is being restored deeply matters.
Nostalgia distorts policy, hindering progress when it becomes a foggy lens, glossing over inequity, social division, or systemic change. If what people remember wasn't perfect, and America has never been perfect, trying to restore a myth rather than reality leads to misplaced priorities.
When the nostalgic vision doesn't match the current lived experience, especially among veterans, immigrants, and marginalized communities, the gap between memory and policy becomes painful.
Promises of greatness stir hope, while failure to deliver breeds cynicism, disillusionment, and division.
Final Thoughts
A foxhole Tootsie Roll for one man is more than a memory; it's a lesson in what memory does by steadying, conjuring meaning, giving solace to the storm. Roosevelt used memories of past trials to build policy for tomorrow. Reagan used imagery of peace and prosperity to lift morale and frame hopes.
Today, Trump leans into the same emotional landscape: A restored past, patriotic education, vivid symbolism, and slogans evoking certainty.
All of this flowery talk shows that nostalgia must not be the destination; it has to be the spark igniting honest action. People, such as soldiers, workers, families, and veterans, whose stories are real, not merely symbolic, deserve more than memory. They deserve government leaders and policies that align with those memories.
President Trump's efforts to restore history and his appeals to a golden age inspire, but any inspiration without follow-through risks becoming nothing more than performative art. When nostalgia becomes politics without policy, hope without help, it fades like the sweetness in the mouth after the candy is gone.
The conservative world was rocked to its core when an act of evil took the life of Charlie Kirk, exposing that same evil in our society when people celebrated his death. The effect was compounded by a media ready to blame Trump for putting in place a tyrannical set of judgments that removed a lame talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, from his nice, cushy gig. Never mind that, as with Stephen Colbert, ABC was hit with a combination of ratings that scraped the floor and its local affiliates getting inundated with viewer complaints about Kimmel blasting them for their stupidity in supporting a Nazi like President Trump.
Now, let's suppose conservative leadership wants nostalgia to be more than a comfort or even a marketing tool. In that case, memory must guide action, build schools, support vets, restore opportunity, and protect actual liberty — not just remember how things were.
Evil cheers when voices like Charlie Kirk are silenced, but America cannot afford to wallow in grief or hollow remembrance.
The past teaches us what's worth defending; the future demands we defend it again with courage, clarity, and action.
No matter what, it takes a unified front to overcome the advantages the left has, such as the media, academia, and Hollywood. For years, the left has presented a unified front, but it has started crumbling lately — and quite dramatically, I may add.
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Nostalgia reminds us of what was, but courage demands we defend it now.
Memory shows us what was worth saving. Now it’s our turn: Are we ready to fight for it?
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