The hippie movement of the 1960s and 1970s failed politically because it lacked a cohesive agenda or leadership structure. While the movement was united in its opposition to war, consumerism, and other societal norms, it was fragmented in terms of specific policy goals. Additionally, the counterculture’s embrace of alternative lifestyles and drug use alienated many mainstream Americans. The movement also faced government repression, including surveillance and harassment by law enforcement, which weakened its ability to effect change through traditional political channels.

“It’s important to consider the context of the hippies, a majority white, middle-class group of young people with the undeniable luxury of being able to ‘drop out’. Even considering their participation in the civil rights and anti-war movements, the fact is that hippies had less at stake than those fighting for civil rights so that they could fully participate in society, not drop out.” -Devon Van Houten Maldonado, BBC Culture, 2018

“The average person on the [Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue] was almost completely ignorant politically,… All they really cared about was drugs, drugs, drugs. They were nihilists and hedonists. They just supported anything that was against the establishment. There was no intellectual foundation. The spirit everyone had talked about—the feeling of love and new age and progressive politics—was dying a miserable death.”

Joe Samberg, photographer of the hippie movement

The New Age petered off in the end of the 1980s. People mocked it for its unscientific beliefs, despite it being a religious organization in many respects. David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson said that they were committed to the notion of personal transformation, but had no hope in the coming of the new age.