How did political and economic life change during the cold war years in the US?

Because the Cold War years lasted so long, political and economic life changed drastically during that time.

At the start of the Cold War, the US was by far the dominant economic power in the world.  American workers could expect good jobs at good pay, more or less for life.  By the end of the Cold War, the rest of the world was starting to catch up with the US.  Americans were particularly worried about Japan catching up to us.

Politically, we moved for a very polite political system with Democrats and Republicans getting along pretty well to a much more divided system.  The Democratic Party lost the South and politics became divided much more along geographic lines.