>I agree re Ike. The highways set the US up for the prosperous stretch you've enjoyed until now. Imagine trying to achieve a scheme of that magnitude today! What have we lost? I'm thinking a) respect- those were days when Tom Dick and Harry didn't believe their "opinion" mattered unless they had some learning on the topic, b) comparatively difficult for stirrers and naysayers to reach the populace and c) the fact that aggressors and contrarians tended to calm down or be removed from the equation by the war.

What have we lost?

That's easy. We've lost the monopolistic dominance that came from destroying basically all of the productive capacity of the rest of the world (with good reason) during WWII. Before WWII, this country was in depths of the worst depression in its history. The war changed all that by creating huge worldwide demand for our goods and service and during the 50's and 60's (when the Interstates began) we had unprecedented prosperity.
To paraphrase Mel Brooks - "It's good to be a monopoly!"

The cold war prolonged things by keeping a lot of the world- especially China- in the dark ages.

We began to see the decline here during the 70's when Japanese steel, cameras, electronics and autos started making dents in the monopoly.
Then China woke up and since then, except for tech and finance, there has been a race to the bottom as more low-wage economies have entered the market.