In the text for our forthcoming exhibition, In Search of Lost Time, we mention how nostalgia is used by organisations and politicians to manipulate people - it is a powerful and worrying tool that is being used officeholders in every corner of the world.
The Leather Federation Advertising Trade Card (c. 1890)
In this article by Lenore Metrick-Chen in Hyperallergic, dated just over 2 years ago, she compares the Trump presidential campaign and Victorian American advertising cards, and discusses the use of nostalgia to embolden the racist mythology of an all white American utopia that never existed.
The article is a couple of years old but it is interesting and still speaks a great deal about now, definitely worth a read.