This is a mistake made by practically every generation. It's the basis of the word "sophomoric" and why Churchill's comment about being liberal at 20 and conservative at 40 is true.
A much deeper manifestation, though, was the manipulation of that generation by communist operatives of the New Left like Hayden, Horowitz, Fonda and countless others. The fulcrum for their totalitarian lever was Vietnam and the draft. LBJ and Robert MacNamara mismanaged the Vietnam war in what I consider criminal fashion, playing politics in place of either using enough force to win or getting out. So a huge number of draft-age students demonstrated against the war singing along with Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, etc., or went to Canada. That's a topic for another thread except to say that the student demonstrations demolished old notions of patriotism and national unity.
By taking over the universities and bureaucracy, the Sixties radicals (usually the red diaper offspring of Communists from the 20s onward) have been able to set much of the national agenda through revisionist history, political correctness, junk science, economic manipulations and making treasonous deals with international agencies like the U.N. I may be a pessimist but the Communist genie is very far out of the bottle. I don't see any unified and effective movements to stop it at this late date.
But on a uniquely massive scale, as your explanation illustrates. Today, Conservatives are more proccupied with trying to define themselves then they are with combating the socialism within.