Overcoming Indifference
On the political disenchantment of Gen Z.
Every once in a while, I encounter a book that speaks so clearly to the questions that keep me up at night. In 2025, that book was An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the Sixties by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The dual memoir follows Goodwin and her late husband Richard “Dick” Goodwin during their time working in the Johnson and Kennedy White Houses, where they each got a front-row seat to many of the defining moments of the 1960s. Many of the historical events depicted in the memoir were familiar to me, yet the intimacy of the memoir forced me to look at this era in a new light.
The rugged determination that characterized much of the Sixties, from the optimism of the Kennedy years to the heartbreak and rage of 1968, carries on throughout the memoir. Goodwin and her husband personified a generation whose experiences and values feel increasingly elusive today. They lived in a period when mass movements were able to influence policy, culminating in legislation that altered the lives of millions, when credibility gaps had the power to sink a presidency, and journalists commanded respect from across the political spectrum. …
Continue reading this article by Joseph Hillyard, “Overcoming Indifference,” here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/overcoming-indifference/