I antedate both of you by almost half a generation and my answer is this: Our grandparents were hardened in the crucible of the Dust Bowl days and the Great Depression. The alphabet days of Roosevelt's New Deal were all that saved many from starvation and destitution but it had the deleterious effect of accustoming people to the siren song of living off the government. At the same time, those who administered those programs became addicted to the sense of power they enjoyed in the distribution of largesse and the opportunity to enlarge their fortunes by graft and cronyism. Then came the world war and the enlargement of the bureaucracy to fight that war, none of which went away when it was over. The subterranean rise of the socialist/Marxist/communist strata, playing on the cupidity of the masses, began to make serious inroads into society when the greater part was exhausted from the cataclysm just ended. You might note that almost none of those involved in this breaking down of foundations actually had a part in the physical battles but were safely at home insinuating themselves into positions of indirect influence.

Our parents were shaped by a different set of molds, or rather, lack of them. Our parents were treated to a paroxysm of insulation because their parents did not want their children to have to endure what they had so they were nurtured in an atmosphere of permissiveness with little real discipline. This manifested itself in the Beat generation, the Hippie movement, culminating in the morass we find today regarding moral laxity and lack of principled behavior. All because two generations ago, a generation decided to hand over its responsibility for raising its children to others because they felt they deserved the respite. Others were only too glad to assume that responsibility and teach the children their belief system. There you have America on the half-shell, ready to be served up as the appetizer to an orgy of tyranny and despotism, for the strictures of which they are totally unprepared.