While I always appreciate a "grumbling old man sees the past as a better place" articles, given my own penchant for grumbling, I can't help but observe that the reason US society is so horrible is precisely the same reason that US politics is so broken: that's what the great mass of ordinary people want. Or, more precisely, it's what you get when you give ordinary people what they believe they want. Everyone wants free ice-cream forever. But in the real world, there are costs. And so companies and politicians alike pander to the great mass of ordinary people by lying to them in one way or another. And because everyone is too busy gawping at their flickering shiny screens to attempt anything remotely resembling coherent thought, the game gets worse and worse with each passing year. People say they want X but they always vote, literally and metaphorically, for Y and they never, ever, recognize that they themselves have created the horrors that result.