Yes, the best years of the United States were the years that things like the Rosewood Massacre and Tulsa Race Riot were considered banal enough people didn't even comment on it. The best years in the USA were when generals were firing on unpaid veterans in the streets of the national capital. The best years in the United States were when there was a House Un-American Activities Committee. The best years in the United States were when the United States created a military juggernaut that turned a blind eye to sending dismembered body parts as trophies to one's loved ones, to strategic bombing and atomic warfare, to sending Soviet dissidents right into the lion's mouth.

The best days of the United States were when it spent four years in the absurd situation of fighting a wannabe architect of Manifest Destiny in European Russia and Axis POWs were treated better than black GIs. The best days of the United States were when it adopted rules and regulations that prohibited Eastern European Jews even as anti-Semitism turned from banal to genocidal and kept it the whole way through the war.

Fuck nostalgia and the horse it rode in on.