Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present to you the State of America over the past 20-40 years. This is focused strictly on long-term trends, not on specific good or bad things that have happened recently, and solely on trends that have a broad impact.

Please note that no trend is perfect. It's fine to note that poverty remains too high, for example, but it remains true that the trend has been steadily down. That said, first up in medium-term trends is:

The Good

1. Income is up for everyone: men, women, Black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, and middle class. Data from the CBO is here. UPDATE: Confused by this chart? Explanation here.
2. Poverty is down by five percentage points since the '70s.
3. Federal income taxes are lower for practically everyone.
4. Contrary to popular opinion, the state of retirement hasn't changed much. Unbiased projections—which is to say, projections that aren't from the retirement industry—show that retiree income and wealth is in good shape and will continue to be in good shape over the next 40 years.
5. Smartphones are cheap and ubiquitous.
6. The divorce rate is down substantially.
7. Nearly everyone has access to the internet, the greatest tool for entertainment and information gathering ever created.
8. Vaccine development is entering a golden age.
9. Among large countries, we have both the highest GDP per capita and the highest growth rate of GDP per capita.
10. We have by far the greatest number of startup companies in the world, both in absolute terms and relative to population.
11. Violent crime has dropped in half since 1990.
12. Survey evidence suggests that overall happiness has been steady for decades.
13. Ditto for life satisfaction.
14. Assistance to the poor has increased more than 3x and currently amounts to about $1 trillion per year.
15. In almost all ways, overt expressions of racism have dropped steadily for decades and are continuing to drop.
16. Ditto for LGBT+ issues, especially same-sex marriage.
17. The air is far cleaner than it was 50 years ago.
18. Ditto for water.
19. The disabled have far better access to public spaces.
20. Police killings of unarmed civilians have decreased by more than half in the past five years. The declines have been especially noticeable among Black and Hispanic suspects, both down by 68%.
21. The spiraling cost of medical care has been brought under control. Over the past 20 years, medical inflation has been only slightly higher than overall inflation.
22. At the same time, the mortality rate from cancer has dropped by a third since 1990.
23. Thanks to CHIP and Obamacare, more people have health insurance than ever before.
24. Teen pregnancy rates are way down. Ditto for abortion rates.
25. High school graduation rates are up and, contrary to popular perception, test scores for graduating seniors have remained steady.
26. Lead levels in young children have plummeted.
27. Entertainment options have blossomed, especially videogames and quality TV.
28. A revolution in depression meds has made life better for millions.

The Bad

1. The worst trend of the past couple of decades has been a steady deterioration in average health outside of the upper middle class. Life expectancy has stopped increasing; obesity is up; opioid addiction is up; and deaths of despair are up.
2. The labor force participation rate has been steadily dropping.
3. The Black-white education gap has been stubbornly resistant to improvement.
4. Climate change continues unabated.
5. Political polarization has gotten worse, thanks mostly to Fox News and, more recently, the rise of Trumpism.

The Ugly

1. Social media. Some good, some bad, nobody knows for sure.