There were solid reasons to fear a scenario like Maggie Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in the eighties. Evangelical Christians went looney tunes, and just like leftists nowadays, they had massive political and social power.

I notice that some of the children I teach are fascinated by the eighties. Of course they'll never know how scary the religious right became during those times, and also they'll never know the nihilistic horror that permeated that era.