I. Fears of Decline The people who most like such slogans as “USA #1” (namely, right-wing populists) are also the most likely to think that America is in decline. On the face of it, that’s weird. But it’s part of a general phenomenon with ideologies: an ideology that values X is also most likely to be convinced that X is just about to be irretrievably destroyed. Environmentalists think the environment is on its last legs; wokists think white supremacists are everywhere; libertarians think we are on the brink of a police state; and nationalists think the country is declining and soon to be destroyed. See, e.g., the end of this video:
I used to be optimistic, not just about America, but about modern society in general. From Matt Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist, to Steven Pinker's book, Enlightenment Now, and others (Goklany, Lomborg, etc.), the logic was simple: as you've done in this post, let's just look at the historical evidence until today; most important things are getting spectacularly better and they are likely to continue to do so.
The COVID lockdowns shook me. I think it's even worse than whether or not America is failing. Nearly all the world's governments turned most of the world into a prison for a non-catastrophic virus. The lockdowns were temporary but the precedent has been set. The U.S. Constitution was discarded, so in that sense, America has failed, but it's worse than that. The global coordination of immoral laws based on poor science was the most worrying. We're on the precipice of a global, cyberpunk dystopia.
No longer can we indulge in a Voltairian or Caplanian Bubblism and enjoy increasing living standards while largely ignoring the government. The government cancer is, through institutional inertia, probing terminal metastasis. This does not necessarily mean that progress in well-being, science, technology, and culture will slow. Cyberpunk dystopic writers were prescient in how their imagined worlds were technologically advanced.
Most people are in denial about the magnitude of the global COVID lockdowns by governments that we just lived through, and what they portend.
The question is, why is the "America is failing" narrative so incredibly popular? As you and plenty of others have laid out, the data clearly supports the fact that in many ways, life is better now around the world, and in the U.S. in particular, than it ever has been. Why does no one seem to care?
I'd be interested in other thoughts, but I think there's a case to be made that the success of the "America is failing" narrative can be chalked up solely to negativity bias and our collective addiction to negative talking points.
In a world of pure rationalists, the data and arguments that paint an optimistic picture of where we are would win out. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. Humans are driven by negativity bias to a much larger extent than most realize. As long as we continue to give more psychological weight to negative talking points and data, articles like this will be drowned out by a sea of negativity.
The fight against overly-negative narratives, and the hyperpolarization these narratives cause, can't be won with more or better data. Until we recognize and push back against our addiction to negativity, negative narratives and talking points will continue to win in the marketplace of ideas.
I agree that America is not dead, and is doing well in many important ways which you highlighted. But I think your case was a bit one-sided. Let me try to make the case for the other side:
Christianity (which I claim is pro-social and a net positive), long the dominant religion in America, is rapidly dying out among the young, and is being replaced by something much worse (wokeness).
"Diversity" is now prioritized over merit in most important institutions, which will predictably lead to a reduction in general competence.
Then of course we have the government, which gives us an ever-increasing regulatory burden, an ever-increasing national debt, and increasingly irresponsible fiscal policy, among other problems..
So I think the picture is not quite so rosy for the USA.
This is belated, and for that I apologize. I see contentions like this from credible authors; one of the other commenters mentioned Ridley and Pinker, and I know of a success coach (no, I don't dismiss such folks out of hand as they've put me on to some very worthwhile reading) whose view is that these are the best times in all of human history to be alive. Still:
It's around an hour and 37 minutes in length, but no one I've shared it who has actually watched it through has told me they still thought all is well in the present ship of state. I would not want to be looking for an apartment to rent right now. We all know, moreover, of claims that for decades now wages have stagnated relative to the cost of living which has skyrocketed; the only disagreements are over why this is.
I sense that most of the stats and abstract claims made above don't affect the average person very much, and his/her whose response to (e.g.) the percentage of Nobel Prize winners being Americans is going to be, "so what?" Yes, the U.S. may still be the largest economy in the world, but there is at least one reason that it may be living on borrowed time: the longstanding and ongoing debauching of the currency which has lost around 98 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created, the bulk of this loss occurring after Nixon killed the gold standard in 1971 and financialization replaced production as the major economic form of life. Everyone who has bought their own groceries for all their lives knows that their money has lost the bulk of its purchasing power. In the 1980s when I was a graduate student, $30 worth of food would fill my freezer and refrigerator for a week. Last summer, my wife and I were out and entertaining another couple. $30 wouldn't even buy a large pizza! Some will dismiss this as anecdotal. Okay, fine, but ask around. Gathering a sufficient number of anecdotes and you're doing research. Daily I read articles of the rich getting richer, the middle class gradually disappearing, and people who are struggling. AI, of course, threatens the next great wave of technological unemployment.
It's a fact, moreover, that other nations are moving away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency: BRICS nations? Russia and China are now doing more and more business using their own currencies. The death of the petrodollar / dollar supremacy may be the death of U.S. economic dominance. For decades now, foreign nations have held dollars. If the dollar hegemony ends, those dollars are going to return to America, devaluing them still more.
Seems worth thinking about.
Finally, are American's universities still the best in the world? I'm not in much position to judge in any decisive way as I've been out of university teaching for over 10 years now, but when professors are getting called onto the carpet and called "bigots" and "transphobic" for saying there are two and only two sexes (a biological fact, excluding perhaps for that .02% of the population that suffers from genuine gender dysphoria) things have gotten a bit loopy, to say the least.
The 'Well-Being' category is probably what most complainers are largely concerned with, and it's the section in which you paint the least rosy picture. Surely America's poorest (or those just above the Medicaid cutoff) would rather have been born in a state with more generous welfare programs, other things being equal.
I used to be optimistic, not just about America, but about modern society in general. From Matt Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist, to Steven Pinker's book, Enlightenment Now, and others (Goklany, Lomborg, etc.), the logic was simple: as you've done in this post, let's just look at the historical evidence until today; most important things are getting spectacularly better and they are likely to continue to do so.
The COVID lockdowns shook me. I think it's even worse than whether or not America is failing. Nearly all the world's governments turned most of the world into a prison for a non-catastrophic virus. The lockdowns were temporary but the precedent has been set. The U.S. Constitution was discarded, so in that sense, America has failed, but it's worse than that. The global coordination of immoral laws based on poor science was the most worrying. We're on the precipice of a global, cyberpunk dystopia.
No longer can we indulge in a Voltairian or Caplanian Bubblism and enjoy increasing living standards while largely ignoring the government. The government cancer is, through institutional inertia, probing terminal metastasis. This does not necessarily mean that progress in well-being, science, technology, and culture will slow. Cyberpunk dystopic writers were prescient in how their imagined worlds were technologically advanced.
Most people are in denial about the magnitude of the global COVID lockdowns by governments that we just lived through, and what they portend.
The question is, why is the "America is failing" narrative so incredibly popular? As you and plenty of others have laid out, the data clearly supports the fact that in many ways, life is better now around the world, and in the U.S. in particular, than it ever has been. Why does no one seem to care?
I'd be interested in other thoughts, but I think there's a case to be made that the success of the "America is failing" narrative can be chalked up solely to negativity bias and our collective addiction to negative talking points.
In a world of pure rationalists, the data and arguments that paint an optimistic picture of where we are would win out. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. Humans are driven by negativity bias to a much larger extent than most realize. As long as we continue to give more psychological weight to negative talking points and data, articles like this will be drowned out by a sea of negativity.
The fight against overly-negative narratives, and the hyperpolarization these narratives cause, can't be won with more or better data. Until we recognize and push back against our addiction to negativity, negative narratives and talking points will continue to win in the marketplace of ideas.
I agree that America is not dead, and is doing well in many important ways which you highlighted. But I think your case was a bit one-sided. Let me try to make the case for the other side:
Mental health is deteriorating. Depression rates are at all-time highs, and 90% of US adults say the United States is experiencing a mental health crisis. (https://news.gallup.com/poll/505745/depression-rates-reach-new-highs.aspx, https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/health/cnn-kff-mental-health-poll-wellness/index.html).
Drug overdose deaths have increased five-fold in the past 25 years. (https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates)
Happiness was at a record low in early 2022. (https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/politics/unhappiness-americans-gallup-analysis/index.html)
Marriage rates and fertility rates have collapsed to all-time lows. (https://www.axios.com/2023/02/25/marriage-declining-single-dating-taxes-relationships)
IQ is declining. (https://nypost.com/2023/03/09/study-suggests-iq-scores-in-the-us-have-fallen/)
Americans increasingly hate each other due to political polarization and the culture war. (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/us-democrat-republican-partisan-polarization/629925/)
Christianity (which I claim is pro-social and a net positive), long the dominant religion in America, is rapidly dying out among the young, and is being replaced by something much worse (wokeness).
"Diversity" is now prioritized over merit in most important institutions, which will predictably lead to a reduction in general competence.
Then of course we have the government, which gives us an ever-increasing regulatory burden, an ever-increasing national debt, and increasingly irresponsible fiscal policy, among other problems..
So I think the picture is not quite so rosy for the USA.
This is belated, and for that I apologize. I see contentions like this from credible authors; one of the other commenters mentioned Ridley and Pinker, and I know of a success coach (no, I don't dismiss such folks out of hand as they've put me on to some very worthwhile reading) whose view is that these are the best times in all of human history to be alive. Still:
This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhq0VLYTqEo&t=94s
It's around an hour and 37 minutes in length, but no one I've shared it who has actually watched it through has told me they still thought all is well in the present ship of state. I would not want to be looking for an apartment to rent right now. We all know, moreover, of claims that for decades now wages have stagnated relative to the cost of living which has skyrocketed; the only disagreements are over why this is.
I sense that most of the stats and abstract claims made above don't affect the average person very much, and his/her whose response to (e.g.) the percentage of Nobel Prize winners being Americans is going to be, "so what?" Yes, the U.S. may still be the largest economy in the world, but there is at least one reason that it may be living on borrowed time: the longstanding and ongoing debauching of the currency which has lost around 98 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created, the bulk of this loss occurring after Nixon killed the gold standard in 1971 and financialization replaced production as the major economic form of life. Everyone who has bought their own groceries for all their lives knows that their money has lost the bulk of its purchasing power. In the 1980s when I was a graduate student, $30 worth of food would fill my freezer and refrigerator for a week. Last summer, my wife and I were out and entertaining another couple. $30 wouldn't even buy a large pizza! Some will dismiss this as anecdotal. Okay, fine, but ask around. Gathering a sufficient number of anecdotes and you're doing research. Daily I read articles of the rich getting richer, the middle class gradually disappearing, and people who are struggling. AI, of course, threatens the next great wave of technological unemployment.
It's a fact, moreover, that other nations are moving away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency: BRICS nations? Russia and China are now doing more and more business using their own currencies. The death of the petrodollar / dollar supremacy may be the death of U.S. economic dominance. For decades now, foreign nations have held dollars. If the dollar hegemony ends, those dollars are going to return to America, devaluing them still more.
Seems worth thinking about.
Finally, are American's universities still the best in the world? I'm not in much position to judge in any decisive way as I've been out of university teaching for over 10 years now, but when professors are getting called onto the carpet and called "bigots" and "transphobic" for saying there are two and only two sexes (a biological fact, excluding perhaps for that .02% of the population that suffers from genuine gender dysphoria) things have gotten a bit loopy, to say the least.
What about "MuH HeAlThCaRe" and "MuH sHoOtInGs"
Have I said I'm being sarcastic?
The 'Well-Being' category is probably what most complainers are largely concerned with, and it's the section in which you paint the least rosy picture. Surely America's poorest (or those just above the Medicaid cutoff) would rather have been born in a state with more generous welfare programs, other things being equal.