FOR those who feel so inclined, the wonders of the web can afford you the same view that Lee Harvey Oswald had 60 years ago as he perched in a corner of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

A webcam providing a round-the-clock, 365 days a year view from the window which was Oswald’s sniper’s nest is a slightly unnerving offer from the museum which now occupies the sixth floor of the building where John F Kennedy’s assassin – or supposed assassin, if you prefer – lurked.

On Wednesday, the 60th anniversary of the assassination, it showed crowds thronging Dealey Plaza, the small historic centre of Dallas which appears almost untouched since ­November 1963. Logging on to the webcam is a fascinating view into ­history and in some ways directly into the past.

Six decades on from one of the ­defining moments of its modern ­history and America has changed ­almost beyond recognition in ways too many to list. But in Dealey ­Plaza, it is always half past noon on ­November 22, 1963 – the roads, paths, lawns and trees appear the same as they did then. The ornate white pergolas, from one of which Abraham ­Zapruder filmed his ­horrifying, iconic home movie of the killing; the curving road, the grassy knoll and the triple underpass – all remain, mute and seemingly unaltered since that day.

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One of the great cliches about the Kennedy assassination – and there are quite a few – is that it is the day ­America lost its innocence. That statement requires one to believe that America was in some fundamental way an “innocent” country before that day, which most would agree is something of a stretch, But there is something to it, all the same. It is possible to trace a line from the assassination, through ­Vietnam, Watergate, the growing polarisation of American politics and society with its endless culture wars, all the way through to the present, so that some draw a direct link between the assassination and its aftermath, and the gradual emergence of the populist wave that drove Donald Trump to the White House, and which could yet see him return there.

The welter of conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination could probably fill the Library of Congress, and more. But you don’t even have to be a JFK ­conspiracy ­believer to see how the murder and its aftermath was a ­fundamental ­precursor to the gradual ­eroding of trust in government and its ­institutions in the US in the years and decades which followed.

That same feeling of disconnect with those in power, a corrosive ­assumption that all politicians must be in some way corrupt – the “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they’re all the same” mentality – and a feeling that an unseen hand is ­controlling things regardless of who you vote for, is not unique to the US.

It is the same worldview that has seen the rise of similar populism elsewhere in the democratic world, including here in the UK. It has also, generally, been the right-wing which has been able to harness that ­populist, sometimes borderline ­nihilist, sentiment to its own ends and purposes.

Whether it is the weaponisation of working-class discontent here in the UK to deliver Brexit, or the ­fuelling of similar disillusionment to feed ­anti-immigration policies in other Western democracies – which only this week delivered veteran rabble-rouser Geert Wilders as winner of the Dutch election – it has been the ­right-wing which has benefitted ­disproportionately from the decades-long rise in political cynicism.

Kennedy, for all his flaws, is still remembered as the first rock star president, maybe the first rock star politician, full stop. The image of him, youthful and effortlessly cool-looking, alongside his stuffy ­contemporaries like Harold MacMillan and Charles de Gaulle, only served to emphasise how different he was.

He was the last president to turn up at his inauguration in the time-honoured tradition of sporting a top hat, although he dispensed with it once the formalities got underway, itself almost a metaphor for how he ­represented a break from the ­formalities of earlier generations.

Kennedy’s time in office ­straddled the short window – indeed his ­truncated presidency is perhaps the definitive demarcation line in the US and elsewhere – between the era of genuine deference for political ­leaders and the move towards the overriding cynicism we have come to know today.

A measure of distrust in ­political leaders, parties and systems is healthy, arguably even essential, to the proper functioning of democracies. But the deep, toxic and corrosive cynicism which has permeated politics throughout the West for so long now is anything but healthy.

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It’s far too much of a stretch to suggest that had Kennedy lived the trends we have seen in politics over the last two generations would not have ­occurred anyway. They ­undoubtedly would have. But his passing is a ­marker nevertheless, a fixed point in time from which so much was to flow, so that it is not ­unreasonable to see it as a point which opened the door to the age of mass cynicism and disillusionment.

There are those who theorise that global politics operates on a system of recurring great cycles, oscillating between periods of conservatism and liberalism, war and peace, chaos and order. So maybe the great cycle of ­cynicism and the age of distrust we know now was ushered in on ­November 22, 60 years ago.

And maybe, just maybe, we can start to move beyond that in the ­generation which lies ahead, to usher in a new era where trust in political ­leaders and institutions is restored and ­refreshed. Realistically, that may be too much to hope for, but given some of what we have witnessed in recent times it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest the future of ­democracy may depend on it.

Another 60 years from now, ­Dealey Plaza will probably still ­remain ­unchanged from the date it will ­forever be associated with. ­Whether America and the wider world will have moved beyond the age of ­cynicism, distrust and populism is ­another question entirely.