I see quite a bit of voting for the 50s and 60s. I'm not down with that.
On one hand, the US was certainly at a military and economic peak during that time. However, there were a wide variety of major political black eyes and issues during that time, such as:
• Segregation and racism were very serious and devastating problems.
• Women were treated like second-class citizens, routinely prevented from working or having careers. There was little recognition of sexual harassment, rape and so forth.
• Gays were very heavily stigmatized during that period.
• The USSR was a very serious threat to the US, was considered an existential threat to the US and a major challenge to its hegemony.
• The Communist threat scared the crap out of everyone in the 50s, resulting in massive political and constitutional abuses by the likes of Senator McCarthy and the HUAC.
• We had numerous military and political misadventures and misfires during that time, such as:
- the Korean War
- Cuba (Bay of Pigs, Missile Crisis)
- aiding the coup in Iran, which came back to bite us, hard, in subsequent years
- Vietnam (and no, that wasn't just "Johnson's War," the US was involved as early as 1959)
• Much of our economic superiority was a result of WWII destroying the manufacturing infrastructure of our competitors, and other competitors were not yet developed. UK, France, Germany, Japan -- shattered. China, Mexico -- barely industrialized. Meanwhile, many US products were well-made, but others were not; auto quality, for example, suffered badly during that period. The Big Three had a monopoly, no incentive to improve quality, little incentive to improve designs, and an antagonistic relationship with labor.
• Speaking of labor, unions at that time were very strong, one of the factors resulting in good wages for US manufacturing employees.
• Medicare did not exist. In fact, medical care was still in many respects somewhat primitive compared to today. We thought cigarettes were healthy.
• Technology was somewhat primitive compared to today. TV was B&W, limited to broadcast; computers barely existed; the most advanced communication technology was a telephone. No Call of Duty!!!
• We barely understood, let alone did anything about, pollution and environmental impacts.
• Some people were terrified of Elvis, rock n' roll, pre-marital sex, Jews, cars made in Japan.... Seems like there was quite a bit of fear-mongering at the time.
One positive thing is that income inequality was relatively mild, at a low point for the 20th century. This was in part due to decent manufacturing work, as well as very high tax rates on the upper incomes of the wealthy, a smaller financial sector, a functioning pension system, higher Social Security benefits, and executives taking less compensation than today.
Another positive thing (by some standards) is that there wasn't as much consumer crap as there is today. AFAIK, nothing comparable to Bed Bath and Beyond existed in 1952. While these creature comforts are nice, we are also drowning in things we really don't need.
So, I'm not sure it was all that great of a time. It definitely wasn't if you were gay, a minority, or a woman. And economically, it certainly wasn't sustainable.