There’s something to what you said. With the WPA in the Depression, the War effort, the Marshall Plan, Civil Rights, the Great Society, the moon landing, maybe they started thinking that government done right really *could* really solve the world’s problems.
I mean, all those things you cite are basically the reason that I am not a libertarian, but rather a conservative. I think government is an absolute necessity and sometimes, it is the only place where a problem may be solved.
But it can’t solve everything and attempts to do so create more problems that lead to more government intervention and now that path lies madness.
I think that so many people either serving or working in a militarized economy created a belief that leaders knew what they were doing.