I don’t have to tell you the vibes are bad. Everybody knows the vibes are bad.
It is not exactly, as Howard Beale lamented in Network, a depression: the dollar isn’t in free fall, but many Americans are struggling. Punks aren’t completely running wild in the streets, and, in fact, NPR reports the murder rate is down significantly from recent peaks, but local police departments and sheriff’s offices continue to face a staffing crisis.
It’s not yet time to break out the Yeats, mere anarchy having not quite been loosed upon us — and yet, on our 250th birthday, Americans are feeling a little blue.
As I wrote this time last year, I love America, and my criticisms — and my optimism — are rooted in that. I pretty much left it all on the mat in last year's column, so I won’t retread things here. Suffice to say, I don’t ignore the horrors of our past, or our present, but I ultimately take the long view.
And that, it seems, puts me in the minority, on both sides of the aisle.
The summer of our discontent
A recent Pew Research survey found that 64% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans felt the best days of the United States are behind us. A cross-section of similar surveys, published in Time this week, found a majority of people “believe that the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction; feel that the American dream is unattainable; and worry that American liberties are under threat.” And, as a Reuters/Ipsos poll found last month, more than three out of four Americans believe they will see a further increase in political violence.
Maybe the heat is making us cranky, but I think it’s far more systemic.
Much of this is economic. You don’t have to be a member of the Democratic Socialists of America to be concerned about wealth inequality.
Some analyses, including those from economists tracking income and wealth distribution, suggest that over the last half-century, more than $80 trillion has been transferred from the bottom 90% to the country's wealthiest 1%. The stock market is booming — but many Americans don’t feel that it’s an indicator of their own success or security. (As Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal says, almost weekly, ‘the stock market is not the economy.’)
And the wealth of America’s leaders makes them seem increasingly alien and disinterested. The average worth of a U.S. Senator is over $4 million, although that’s skewed by some who are worth ten or a hundred times that. Nancy Pelosi’s suspicious success on the stock market (though the trades are technically made by her husband), is a frequent target for populist critics, especially on the right, and it certainly should be — as should the Trump family’s grifting and grafting.
You could argue that a rising tide lifts all boats, and certainly, when everyone is doing well (relatively speaking), wealth inequality is less acute an issue. You could also argue that the wealth of our leaders is a sign of their success, that they’re reaping the benefits of the wisdom and dedication for which we elected them. But when grocery bills, rent, childcare, and healthcare costs continue to financially and psychologically burden people — regardless of party — then the oligarchy becomes more obscene.
As a tonic to this financial frustration, many on the right point to two things. First, the enormous improvements in the standard of living delivered by capitalism over the past two hundred years. Second, the comparatively onerous tax structures in Scandinavian and European countries (at the state level, the Republicans in Raleigh tout North Carolina’s comparably low income taxes). And these arguments have been persuasive, to some extent, over the years.
But, just looking around the Cape Fear region right now, you can see why they might fall a little flat. We can’t afford the maintenance on our schools, our major bridge, and our main roadways. We’re struggling to keep up compensation for law enforcement, firefighters, and teachers. And rent continues to grind upward (not at the same rate as a few years ago, but still rising). An overtaxed but generally happy society, as the Swedes and Germans and the like are often presented, becomes a less effective boogeyman. We’re the city on the hill, we’re exceptional, we’ve told ourselves — so ‘better than France’ doesn’t cut it. And I think we should expect better than our colleagues across the pond. As Hunter S. Thompson might have said, ‘This is America, goddamnit, we can dream bigger.’
But it seems recently many of our biggest dreams have been military misadventures.
We just spent nearly $30 billion on our war with Iran, which, geopolitically, landed us very nearly where we were before we started, if not in a negative position. Now, is preventing a top state sponsor of terrorism from having a nuclear weapon a good thing? Absolutely. I don’t want to gloss over that.
But having alienated allies around the globe, the U.S. took the lead and footed the bill. As Forbes reported a couple of weeks ago, just one in four Americans thought it was worth it.
An oft-cited figure from Moody’s Analytics put the total economic impact even higher, at around $132 billion for taxpayers and consumers. But even if you think that’s an overestimate, the concerns over priorities are real.
I hear frustration from my friends on the right about how that money could have been used to bolster domestic law enforcement, take care of veterans, and improve infrastructure; my friends on the left suggest addressing public education, homelessness, mental health, and also infrastructure. (A shared refrain was that we could have built 30 new Cape Fear Memorial Bridges — and saved a lot of lives — instead of attacking Iran.) And, of course, many are quick to note: the twenty-year Global War on Terror cost far more, an estimated $8 trillion according to research at Brown University.
A mighty mess
These are not the only factors, and of course, every issue will have its own nuanced political dynamics, but the throughline is that Americans do not feel like the government, for all its resources, is working for them.
Especially for protected classes — or, at least, classes that once were protected — it increasingly feels like the core balance between Constitutional protection for minorities and democratic popular rule is out of whack. The fundamental check that protects the few against the many feels broken, or at least thoroughly strained. If, for example, a majority of Supreme Court Justices say that the threat of racism has abated, and the landmark Voting Rights Act is now antiquated, then that becomes the law, and for many, the reality of the land. And while Justice Clarence Thomas is just one of nine, hearing him ruminate on scrapping Obergefell v. Hodges and Loving v. Virginia … well, you could say we’re a long way from the Warren Court.
At the same time, I hear increasing frustration about what the government is doing to people. For decades, polling has shown a majority of Americans feel the federal government is too powerful and intrusive, particularly when it comes to surveillance and data collection. On other issues, there’s less agreement. Except for a few Libertarians, you’re not likely to find tons of people who are equally passionate about gun rights, gender affirming care, free speech, and recreational drug use. The college Republicans and stoners on my dorm floor agreed the government should butt out, but for different reasons — and which intrusions you object to are a clear shibboleth of what side you’re on, and both sides have their blind spots.
The overreach, I often hear, is driven by two things: insufficient checks on the surveillance state and the culture wars. One is excused by national security, the other under other banners, like public health, equity, or national identity.
Now, there’s a lot of equivocating going on out there, part of the online meme culture that flattens everything to a nuanceless landscape (some would say hellscape). Do I personally think the government's overreaches during Covid are the same as Trump’s authoritarian moves on immigration? No. Do I think J.D. Vance’s drivel about ‘heritage,’ which Karl Rove rightly called out as un-American, is the same as Joe Biden’s performative exercises in Wokeness? Also no.
For me, it’s a matter of degree, motive, and context. But I’m a middle-aged journalist, set in my politics as a classic liberal with a libertarian streak (and just a dash of anarchism from my college years). There are many young people for whom the government's efforts to shape society in one particular image — whether that’s progressive and politically correct, conservative and Christian, or some more vile White Nationalist vision — are all excessive, corrosive to freedom, and, as one fairly apolitical friend of mine put it, ‘an annoying waste of time.’
As the pendulum swings back and forth, a third of the country cheers, another third recoils, and the final third is just exhausted. The most recent administration has taken things to new depths – we’re past the politics of resentment, this is the Chicago Way, now — but will the next administration restore sanity? Will the next president, Republican or Democrat, take a page from Gerald Ford and try to uncock the hammer? Will the party in charge in 2028 work to push back on executive power, write norms into laws, and focus on governing rather than ‘winning’? People I talk to, especially younger folks, aren’t confident. In fact, it’s a fair part of why they’ve got the blues.
So, let’s face up to a pretty bleak vision of the American experiment on its 250th birthday: a government that does too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right things, tremendously powerful but unable to fix the problems facing most Americans.
It’s a bloated, gridlocked, paranoid, and opaque government that protects corporate wealth at the expense of working Americans, that privileges security over privacy, and ostensibly (and ostentatiously) spends more time trying to fix ‘the culture’ than the roads, schoolhouses, and police stations.
By the people, for the people
And yet … and yet, as I said, I remain both patriotic and optimistic.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not pretending that things — not just vibes — aren’t bad. They are, I know. To paraphrase LCD Soundsystem, “America, I love you, but you’re freaking me out.”
But I don’t think we’re cooked. And that is in large part, as I often say, because I take the long view, although not flippantly.
I’ve seen ruins in Europe and North Africa that have been growing moss and seaweed longer than we’ve been a nation. I’ve also seen the scars of real tyranny and terror, at home and abroad, and I try to keep some historical scale and perspective — I try to remember what we learned from Douglass, Faulkner, and Baldwin — but also what we learn from Orwell and Koestler.
Pick at random some point in time from the last 250 years, or some point on the globe, what are the odds you’d rather be here and now than there or then? Pretty good gamble, I’d say.
I also keep in mind that, at the fresh-faced age of a quarter century, we are still very much an experiment.
For conservatives who are frustrated or fearful that a wave of initially popular Mamdani-inspired socialists will run the car off into a ditch after they run out of other people’s money — well, if that happens, you’ll get a chance to rebuild it (if you can build a mandate by acting like sane adults and reaching across the aisle with an open hand instead of a fist).
For liberals who are afraid Trump’s potent blend of authoritarianism and populism has already eroded civil rights and our most important institutions — well, it’s unlikely anyone will be able to hold the MAGA party together the way Trump has, so in 2028, you’ll get a crack at it (if you can get your shit together and offer a platform beyond ‘Orange man = bad’ that appeals to more than party loyalists).
It will always be someone else’s turn, and they will either serve the public well — or they won’t. As Reagan said, “You don't become President of the United States. You are given temporary custody of an institution called the Presidency, which belongs to the people.”
And I keep that — “the people” — in mind, most of all.
The mayor is not the city; the president is not the country. America is, for me, first, last, and forever, the people. It’s Americans who created everything I love about America — not Congress, nor any administration. Even in our most important Supreme Court cases, where we rightly praise the brilliance of our finest Justices, I remind people that they ruled on the merits of cases brought by Americans, tried by Americans, fought for by Americans.
Frederick Douglass’s 1857 speech on “West India Emancipation,” one of the most mind-blowingly quotable pieces ever written or orated, embraces the struggle — and eloquently mocks those who think they can have progress without it.
“They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters,” Douglass said. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.”
Ordinary people have always done the demanding, with muskets at Lexington, a woman’s ballot in Rochester, veterans' Springfields and family shotguns at Blair Mountain, a sit-in at a Greensboro luncheon counter, and high heels and fists at The Stonewall Inn. Their ordinariness is what made them exceptional; it’s what made them American. That’s part of what we’re celebrating when we fly the flag.
Americans find other ways to persevere, as well. When things are bad, Americans are at their best: our food, music, movies, and novels. When we’re feeling blue, we translate pain and privation into passion like no one else. Our flag stands for that, too.
Even the goofiest examples shed some light on this: Ranch dressing is, thanks to the algorithm, having something of a moment now as World Cup spectators experience it for the first time, along with America’s countless other delicacies. It’s a passing fad, but it reminds us of what a country is — its culture, its people.
When it comes to despotic countries, we strive to emphasize that the people are not the government. Persians are not the Iranian theocracy, the Chinese are not the CCP, the Russians are not Putin. People are complicated, contradictory, and almost universally better than their leaders and governments. We owe ourselves, with our far better prospects for liberty and prosperity, the same nuance and understanding.
Something worth fighting for
Lastly, we have a blueprint — not a perfect plan — to bring together all of the diverse people who make America great, not ‘again,’ but as always.
You can go and live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. But you can come here and become an American, as was the case for the families of nearly everyone reading this. To do that, to become an American, does not mean you have to agree on every point — it would be a boring, stagnating, heat death for our country if that were true.
But that means we have to wrestle with friction and factions, and the forces holding us together must be stronger than those pushing us apart.
It is not a simple system, and it has, to say the least, some serious kinks that need to be worked out. But our Constitution, for all its flaws, laid down a durable foundation, if we’re willing to maintain and build on it. A Republic, if we can keep it. We celebrate 250 years of that, as well.
This is not cheap optimism. No one said it would be easy — and our nation will face profound threats and disruptions in the coming decades.
Our declining birth rate will alter how America looks, AI will likely upend how we work and who still has a job, and climate change — not the hyperbolic threats but the long, slow shifts — will destabilize things globally and domestically.
Russia is on track to become increasingly unstable, an unpredictable nuclear-armed nation facing financial free fall, and a political vacuum when Putin, now 73, exits the stage. China may eventually force a military conflict over Taiwan, and will definitely confront us economically.
Meanwhile, media consolidation and under-regulated tech companies will continue to push people into anxious, partisan silos, replacing human interaction with a synthetic diet of rage bait.
I don’t mean all that as doomerism — these aren’t the things I think will end the American experiment. In a crazy way, they might save it — because if there’s a particularly American quality, it’s how we’re defined not by the stability of the status quo, but the chaos of the breaches we step into.
Perhaps, like the crises of the past — Great Depressions and Great Wars — the mere threats will push us to find common ground. But I think it will be meeting the challenges, more than just acknowledging them, where we find our way — and our better angels.
Though we often recognize it only in hindsight, hard times can be the best times, and even the deepest blues can become a celebration. What's more American than that?
