And I would add that not everybody is targeted for their political opinions, they might disagree but not be vocal enough to be targeted, be lucky, etc. So the lack of voting power might not affect their capacity at having a good life and forming happy memories. In particular for east German women.
I don't think it's fair to characterize the people the author talks about as children raised under privileged circumstances necessarily. Many working class people, mothers who had plenty of support in raising kids, people who enjoyed relatively egalitarian and free education for the first time and so on have legitimately good memories, and are today some of the most dissatisfied with the state of affairs. In particular the role of women seems to have been mostly lost. When the East had already granted reproductive rights, women in the West got abortions in the Netherlands.
This is generally written off as "Ostalgie" (pun on nostalgia) in exactly the same way the author describes.