Republican Call to Return US to 1960s Sparks Backlash

Representative Glenn Grothman, a Wisconsin Republican, received backlash on social media Thursday afternoon after he called for the U.S. to return to the 1960s.

While speaking on the House floor on Thursday, Grothman criticized people who advocate for government-funded child care programs and then called for a more traditional approach to ensuring the welfare of children in the next administration.

"Every year, of course, I am lobbied by people who want the government, therefore, to take an even greater role in their children's life—be it day care, be it pre-school, be it after-school programs, whatever. They clearly want the children raised by the government," Grothman said. "I hope the [White House] press corps picks up on this. And I hope Republican and Democrat leadership put together some sort of plan for January in which we work our way back to where America was in the 1960's."

Newsweek reached out to Grothman's press secretary via email for comment.

Grothman's comments were met with criticism when a clip of his House floor speech circulated on X, formerly Twitter.

Bradley P. Moss, a national security attorney, pointed to some of the major issues of the 1960s: "Segregated? Watching presidents and major political figures be assassinated?"

"What he's REALLY saying is, take America back *before* 1964. What they really want is possibly to erase the 20th Century," another X user wrote.

The 1960s was a pivotal moment of change in American history. A rise in feminism led to the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would prohibit sex-based discrimination, into Congress. The ERA was later passed by the House and the Senate in the 1970s but it failed to achieve ratification. The civil rights movement also hit a peak in the 1960s, leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helped to end legal racial discrimination.

There were, however, several assassinations in the decade. President John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963, followed by civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Kennedy's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, a New York senator and former U.S. Attorney General who was running for president, was assassinated a month after King.

One X user wrote in reaction to Grothman's comments: "Make no mistake they are saying the quiet part out loud!"

Another X user said that Grothman's vision is "also known as Project 2025, at least they're not pretending any longer. They're saying it out loud."

Project 2025 is an initiative developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to make significant changes to the backbone of the United States federal government. It is designed to be implemented if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.

However, Trump has recently said, "I know nothing about Project 2025." A Project 2025 spokesperson, meanwhile, previously told Newsweek, "As we've been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign...But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement."

Government programs like Head Start have helped children and families for decades. Head Start is a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that promotes "school readiness" by providing education, nutrition, and other services to toddlers of low-income families. Since the Head Start program began in 1965, it has served 39 million children and families.

Under Project 2025, the Head Start program would be eliminated. Its Mandate for Leadership, which is an over 900-page document, writes that Head Start "is fraught with scandal and abuse."

"With a budget of more than $11 billion, the program should function to protect and educate minors. Sadly, it has done exactly the opposite. In fact, 'approximately 1 in 4 grant recipients had incidents in which children were abused, left unsupervised, or released to an unauthorized person between October 2015 and May 2020,'" the Mandate for Leadership read, in part.

According to a Newsweek article from January, child care now costs more than college. Around 47 percent of parents spent up to $18,000 a year on their child care expenses in 2023, Care.com's 2024 Cost of Care Report found, while 20 percent of parents indicated they spent more than $36,000 in 2023. The website is an online marketplace for families to find child care among other forms of care.

Update 7/11/24, 6:31 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.