THE MINDSET LIST FOR THE CLASS OF 1986

THE MINDSET LIST

FOR THE CLASS OF 1986

If there had been a Mindset List for the Class of 1986, it would look like this:

In Loving Memory of Andrew Alt, 1964-2024

1 Extremism in the defense of liberty has always been no vice. 

2 New tensions with Panama always seem to be rising over the damned canal. 

3 German Beetles are already on the road, and English Beatles are on their way. 

4 A Surgeon General has always said that smoking is perilous to one’s health. 

5 The Fourth Amendment has always been putting aside the convictions of murderers. 

6 A resolution over a minor incident in the Gulf of Tonkin Has always been equivalent to an official declaration of war. 

7 A lovely little girl counting petals on a daisy has always been blown up by nukes in a campaign ad. 

8 Willie Mays has always made a whopping 105 thousand dollars per year. 

9 Hello, Dolly and Whisky A-Go-Go have always been big cultural icons. 

10 An astronaut has always been running for Senate. 

11 Charley has always had a chocolate factory. 

12 The World Trade Cen4r has always been planned in New York City. 

13 Poll taxes in Federal elections have always been unconstitutional. 

14 A female senator has always run for the Republican presidential nomination. 

15 NASA has always sent a rocket, carrying TV cameras to crash-land on the Moon just in case anyone up there might be interested in starting a show. 

16 There have always been protests against de facto segregation–in New York City. 

17 There’s always been something called a Buick Sport Wagon. 

18 Cuba has always been cutting off American water supply. 

19 The heavyweight boxing king has always been someone named Casius Clay. 

20 Jimmy Hoffa has always been a jailbird. 

21 Malcolm X has always been kicked out of the Nation of Islam. 

22 A car has always been a Mustang, too. 

23. Kitty Genovese has always been a false story about citizen indifference. 

24 The assassin of the presidential assassin has always been found guilty.   

25 The Johnson Administration has always said that defending South Vietnam from Communism is a really, really, really big deal. 

26 JEOPARDY has always been reversing questions and answers. 

27 Malcolm has always been asking his followers to choose between the ballot and the bullet. 

28 Young American pop song lovers have always wanted to twist and shout and hold somebody’s hand. 

29 The Polo Grounds have always been no more. 

30 A black man has always been named Best Actor. 

31 Tom Jones and Cleopatra tie in the Oscars contest, but only one of them nearly bankrupted a studio. 

32 Shea has always been a stadium. 

33 The New York World’s Fair has never quite been an official World’s Fair.

34 Students have always been protesting the growing war in Nam. 

36. The KKK has always been murdering civil rights activists. 

36 Men have always been burning their draft cards. 

37 There has always been, in theory, a Great Society.

38 LBJ has never been confused with LeBron James.  

39 It’s always been against the law to refuse service to people based on their race. 

40 Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are college freshmen. 

41 There have always been toples dancers in fancy San Francisco nightclubs–wearing “mockinis.”  

42 Casualties in Vietnam have always topped one thousand. 

43 There’s always been, thank God, an Arby’s. 

44 Looney Tunes have always gone out of business. 

45 On the film screen, a spoonful of sugar has always made the medicine go down. 

46 Gilligan has always had an Island. 

47 Alabama has always executed a man–for robbery. 

48 Martin Luther King, Jr. has always been the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.  

49 President Johnson has always said that Asian boys, not American ones, will fight in Vietnam. 

50 Rudolph has always had a one-hour TV special for the Christmas season. 

51 Nicholas Cage, Wanda Sykes, and Jeff Bezos have always been in diapers. 

52 Flannery O’Connor, Sam Cooke, Douglas MacArthur, and Alan Lad have always been dead. 

53. John Le Carre has always invented a spy who came in from the cold while Ian Fleming says you never live twice.

54 There has always been a Giving Tree for kids. 

55 There has never been enough Free Speech at Berkeley.