A new wave of footage from 1970s Iran has gone viral, and Americans are finally seeing what life looked like in Tehran before the theocrats seized power. Dave Rubin highlighted the clip during a recent roundtable, sharing a DM conversation with guests who reflected on the shock many feel watching Iranians stroll the streets and enjoy a freer society. The resurfacing of these images is forcing a reckoning with the fact that history can be erased — but it can also remind people what liberty once looked like.
The scenes are unmistakable: university students in Western dress, concerts and beaches where women went uncovered, and a vibrant cultural life that would be unthinkable under the ayatollahs. Media fact-checkers have traced many of the photos and films to Tehran in the late 1960s and 1970s, and historians and archives confirm that urban Iran was considerably more secular and outward-facing before 1979. For those used to the image of Iran as a closed, backward theocracy, these clips land like a punch in the nose — and rightly so.
For conservatives who believe in freedom and national sovereignty, this viral nostalgia isn’t about romanticizing monarchy but about remembering that Iranians are not defined by their rulers. Modern protests inside Iran and the chatter among exiled opposition figures make clear that many Iranians yearn for dignity and self-determination rather than clerical rule. Seeing this footage should harden American resolve to support dissidents and oppose regimes that silence their own people.
Of course, the same coastal elites and campus radicals who excuse tyrants abroad have little to say when women in Iran are punished for loose hair or Western clothing. It’s the classic double standard: chant about “systemic problems” at home while pretending brutal theocrats are merely cultural differences to be respected. Americans who love liberty must call out that hypocrisy and stand unapologetically on the side of human rights, not on the side of fashionable silence.
Policymakers should also learn from the past instead of repeating it. Appeasing or normalizing a regime that crushed women’s freedoms and exported extremism abroad does not keep Americans safe — it only rewards brutality. If these viral images of pre-revolution Iran do anything useful, let them remind leaders in Washington that supporting freedom abroad is not optional politics but core national interest.
Finally, to every hardworking American scrolling these clips: take pride in your traditions of liberty and pass those values on loudly. The people of Iran deserve the same freedoms we often take for granted, and history’s pictures prove that liberty is not some alien concept to Iranians — it was once their reality. Stand with them, speak for them, and let this viral rebuke to tyranny strengthen our commitment to freedom everywhere.
