On Tuesday I wrote about my hundredth post on how America is much better off than we think. You know the drill: incomes are high, crime is low, drug use is down, etc., etc.
This produced some of the usual pushback: I'm a retired, upper-middle-class guy living in Irvine who just doesn't get how badly people are struggling. There's some obvious truth to that, but it's ironically due more to my personality than my income. There's just flatly no evidence that Americans are struggling financially more than in the past. By every possible measure for every possible demographic we're struggling less. You can look at rich or poor; income or consumption; assets or debt; homeownership or retirement. No matter what you look at, there are fewer people doing badly and more people doing well than 20 years ago.
In other words, just give it up on the economic front. America is the world's supreme powerhouse on practically every economic measure and looks set to stay that way for some time. Our problem is not prosperity. It's the price we've paid for prosperity.
This is hardly a new insight, and the examples I'm about to list have mostly been well chewed over. But I want to collect them all in one place anyway. Some are unique to the US and some aren't. But they're all things that have made American life more of a grind over the past 20-50 years.
- We have an increasingly workaholic culture in America. Since 1976, the number of people who work more than 50 hours a week has doubled to about 25%, compared to 7% in Europe. On average we work nearly 300 more hours per year than Europeans and are allowed less vacation time, less sick time, and less maternity leave.
- We are more obese than any other advanced country by a lot. This makes life wearier, illnesses more common, life expectancies shorter, and time spent in the health care system higher.
- Life, obviously, is way more complicated than it used to be. Computers and cell phones do a lot of great stuff, but they're intensely frustrating too. Especially for the working class, which doesn't work with computers on the job all day long, it's exhausting to be forced into battles with confusing web pages for so many routine daily tasks.
- Health care denials are in the news, and they can be drainers of the soul. Most people don't know this, but it's a fact of life for the 15-20% of us who have serious illnesses and therefore have heavy exposure to the medical system. Needless to say, this wasn't an issue 50 years ago because there were hardly any medical procedures expensive enough for claims adjusters to care about.
- Commuting in rush hour traffic is more stressful than it was 50 years ago because freeways are more jammed—and certainly more stressful than a hundred years ago when you mostly walked or took a trolley to work. More generally, as cities become more crowded they also become more stressful. This is well known, but not something the YIMBY crowd likes to acknowledge.
- Fox News and its companions have spent the past three decades hellbent on making us livid with anger over everything. They do this solely because it makes them money.
- Dealing with with large businesses—cable companies, phone companies, electric companies, credit card companies, you name it—has become maddening. Telephone support is often an hours long marathon that's frequently incomprehensible because the call center is located in Bangalore or Manila and staffed with low-paid, poorly trained workers. And you're completely at their mercy. It's just a faceless voice reeling off rules you have no say over, and eventually it brings even the meek and mild to temper tantrums. Is it this bad elsewhere? I don't know, but I'd bet the American obsession with squeezing every possible penny out of corporate expenses puts us near the worst.
- Everywhere is private property these days, patrolled by private security guards watching to make sure you don't break any rules. Does this make you feel you safer? Probably. Does it also induce low-level stress every time they tell you, sorry but you can't take a picture of that? You can't walk back there? This is a no-smoking area? Probably.
- Fear of mass shooting events seems to be far more prevalent among teens than I would have guessed. The constant drills, the TV coverage, the transparent backpacks—all of that conspires to induce a persistent low-level fear that something terrible could happen at any moment. This is very definitely a problem unique to America.
So why is my (possible) indifference to this stuff related more to my circumstances and personality than my income? Two reasons. First, most of these things don't affect me: I'm retired; I'm not obese; I like computers; my HMO never denies care; I don't commute; I don't watch Fox News (or MSNBC); and mass shootings are just distant newspaper headlines. That leaves only 7 and 8. Not much, really.
Second, I happen to have a fairly non-fearful personality and I benefit from being a large, not-old looking, man. I'm genuinely never worried about low probability stuff like terrorist attacks, my house being broken into, bird flu killing me, or whatever the latest food scare is. Lots and lots of people fret about this stuff all the time. I understand it, but it's still kind of alien to me. You're really afraid that you might be killed in a terrorist attack?
All of this might help explain why people seem to feel generally more stressed and anxious than their objective financial condition can explain. Or maybe not. This is all off the top of my head, and I'm not super invested in it.
Except for #6, of course. That one is truly an American catastrophe.
I think you left out our heavy use of psychoactive drugs and the resulting high death rate from doing so. If anything, it suggests that a lot of people don't think "getting high on life" (bleah) is enough.
Citation not included, dude.
Fine. Hearsay. Like, what I hear the talking voices on NPR say, and the Washington Post. About every week there's something about drug use, drug interdiction failures, drug deaths.
So, I got nuthin'.
Drug deaths are mainly caused by opiates with a minority caused by stimulants (cocaine and methedrine). There are almost no deaths caused by psychoactive drugs.
Okay, we clearly have a different definition of "psychoactive." My concept is things that alter your state of mind, so that would include cocaine, meth, wine, beer, whiskey, etc.
I'm assuming your definition is more along the lines of hallucinogens?
Correct. In addition to hallucinogens, also include meds for mental illness such as quetiapine, anti-depressants and the like, although those drugs are not often abused.
Number 4 is also "truly an American catastrophe". It's just not an issue in countries with universal health care.
Our system has massive problems, but universal health care providing countries do actually deny all kinds of service and procedures. The difference is that you typically don't also have the option to pay for them.
"but universal health care providing countries do actually deny all kinds of service and procedures"
"all" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there for your claim.
Relative to the overall services and procedures provided, it's only a tiny tiny fraction which aren't, and those are exclusively because they are considerd either experimental or cosmetic/voluntary in nature. Also unlike the profits over care in the US system, you don't have to fight any agent, bean counter, or hospital staff about how to pay for the procedure, or trying to get the procedure approved.
Both of these comments are sorta wrong. As a Canadian there are many points of frustration and friction with the "public system" as well. Not saying one is better or worse. I have had one hip replaced about ten years ago. About three years ago I started feeling the same pain and immobility. Three years later it is pretty bad and I avoid walking any kind of distance and climbing stair is very painful. I know I need another surgery, and my GP keeps sending me for Xrays, but the radiologists reading the Xrays say it "isn't bad enough yet". My GP sent me twice to a retired ortho surgeon/practicing ortho consultant, who has twice said that I need surgery. My GP keeps sending me and the radiologists say no. My GP finally sent me for a MRI and, lo and behold, I have severe arthritis in the hip. So I knew I needed it, my GP knew, and the Orthopaedist knew, but a nameless faceless radiologist said "no". Any scarce resource (ortho surgery - about $50-100K) is rationed somehow. Does not matter the specifics of the system.
Yeah, you do have an option. You travel somewhere to get it done.
And in some, there is private sector for additional cosmetic or comfort issues.
This broad statement is quite misleading. We can give it 1 out of 5 on the accuracy scale.
As an Australian I can tell you that, aside from cosmetic surgery for purely aesthetic reasons, no treatment or procedure is denied in the public system. Some procedures that involve non-life threatening conditions may require you to go on a wait list for a year or two.
BUT, if you don’t want to wait you can always get private health insurance and get the procedure done as soon as your wait time is done. I have also had my own private health insurance my entire adult life and while I’ve never used it my wife has gotten into two surgery’s within a few weeks via the private system.
> may require you to go on a wait list for a year or two.
"justice delayed is justice denied"
Number 4 is also "truly an American catastrophe". It's just not an issue in countries with universal health care.
There's a pretty wide variety of quality when using the term "universal health care." Some systems in rich countries are under tremendous pressure and are struggling with, say, arduously long delays in getting appointments. And yes, typically the government bureau that runs healthcare is charged with the task of approving or, uh, denying specific therapies.
That's not to defend the US model—if I were king I'd make sweeping changes—but saying "denial" of certain therapies is uniquely American doesn't ring true to me.
The problem is that American health insurance companies don't just deny certain therapies. They deny them differently to different customers based on their insurance package (and then, of course, there are the uninsured, who are effectively non-existent in universal health care countries).
Fox is still viewed by a minority, so it’s only part of the answer. I think out of control income equality gets people mad even if you’re keeping up. Seeing mega mansions built up and people driving Bentleys only makes it worse. Also the belief that government isn’t working or is only working for the 1% sets up rage and anger
Yet so many who are angry voted for Trump and his billionaire bros to run the country
Just because they are angry doesn’t mean they are rational.
A minority who manages to sway what the rest of us end up talking about.
> Fox is still viewed by a minority, so it’s only part of the answer.
A minority of the population voted for Trump.
> Also the belief that government isn’t working
Where does that idea originate, at least since, say, 1978 ?
> or is only working for the 1%
That's a totally different proposition, and progressives should own this.
Fox have motivations above and beyond money. Murdoch fancies himself the successor of a long line of Anglophone Press owners -- from the first Lord Northcliffe on down (way down) -- who fancied themselves powers behind the political thrones, able to appoint and dismiss ministers and even governments. The scalps have been few and far between: Asquith, Nixon, arguably Biden. Murdoch wants to be the one who gets the next scalp. If he ever dies, it will be because he has given up on that particular, sharply-focussed ambition.
Imagine, though, if you were a teen with gender dysphoria living in Texas or Tennessee.
I get the point, Kevin, and it's one those points that's almost always true in the US. We mostly have first-world problems. Except in the Deep South, it seems, where Third World poverty combines with state governments that want to screw the poor.
Screwing the poor is an exercise incentivizing self deportation of the poor (Brown/Black).
Thirty years ago being arrested or getting medical care sucked for a trans people - which is why we have 40-50% suicide rates. That right: not a 15-50 in 100,000; but little less than 1 in 2.
But we had the chance of being stealth and we wouldn't be targeted, at least, by law, we were just ignored.
Florida just implemented forced conversion therapy for trans people in jail.
"Florida just implemented forced conversion therapy for trans people in jail."
Do you have a link for this? I thought Florida SB245 bans the use of state funds on any gender-affirming prescriptions or surgical procedures.
"Conversion therapy" doesn't mean supporting transitioning or any other form of gender affirming care. It means treating transgenderism as a mental illness and working to convince trans people that they aren't really trans.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/12/10/new-florida-prison-policy-on-trans-health-care-like-conversion-therapy
I offer a hypothetical question for discussion. Gender dysphoria was, for a long time, viewed as an untreatable mental disorder. When medicine advanced to the point that a person's apparent sex could be changed by medical/surgical means, the medical profession started treating gender dysphoria as a physical disorder that could be "cured" by surgery. Now suppose that gender dysphoria COULD be "cured" by converting trans people into cis people. Would we then go back go back to viewing gender dysphoria as a mental disorder, but now a curable one?
Taking away the gender affirming hormones detransition's people. That sounds pretty drastic to me. Those prescriptions are written by doctors. So the state is overriding doctors orders.
Kevin, you’re bumming me out with all this
The fact that the US economy is strong and we have full employment should make you smile. You could live in the UK. Brexit has wrecked their economy.
Which trendline is the UK and which is France? Could you identify the effect of Brexit without looking up the year in which it occurred?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart&country=FRA~GBR
Weird that chart ignores their currency devaluation and energy costs... and employment rates.
Weird that it doesn't matter.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?end=2023&locations=FR-GB&start=2009
"Gross" even.
Brexit trade changes went into effect in 2021, although major portions were delayed until 2022.
Hard to tell much with GDP data through 2023, but your last chart shows a fairly significant change in trend from 2021 to 2023. France is pulling away from the UK, especially in 2023. Incomplete 2024 data seems to be going in the same direction.
How big of a disaster this is is currently and will be in the near future is a matter of judgement. We can make big impacts look small if we chart it just right...and vice versa.
Are you defending Brexit, or saying it has less impact than anti-Brexit folk claim?
Wow, almost a declaration of acceptance of privilege. Almost.
I noticed that too.
An awareness of one's own situation and potential blind spots is a rare and valuable skill set. It isn't better to simply ignore your own vantage point.
The coming population collapse will solve a lot of these problems.
#7 Is Fraud By Complexity.
Kevin, I agree with you regarding most things are better but you also do not have children. That changes one's perspective on everything, like the potential for a fascist dictatorship. Unless one is an asshole and could care less about their kids, stress and worry increase.
There was a time - back in the 50's and maybe 60's - when one income could support 2 kids, a dog, a stay at home parent (free childcare) AND a house. (Or close to it.) And a pension with Social Security being a nice addon. Any mention of this history provides comedy OR tragedy depending on the audience but is just salt in the wound of today's workers who feel they'll never have any of that.
This is a bit of a fiction as poverty rates in the 50s were much higher than they are today. The white middle class was a pretty protected group though and they could live that life.
The chances their children did as good or better was also higher than it is today, which I think is a large part of the perceived problem.
Actually, I remember the 1950s and early 1960s, and you could have a middle class lifestyle--with the necessities, car, house, food, health care--on one person's salary--from a teaching job or union job, for example. You can't do that now. Even professors at non-Ivy League colleges can't do that.
"Actually, I remember the 1950s and early 1960s, and you could have a middle class lifestyle--with the necessities, car, house, food, health care--on one person's salary"
This bullshit needs to stop. In the 1950s and 1960s, half the adult population (women, if you can't recall) was actively pressured to not have a job, and had limited access to basic things like bank accounts. And the world wasn't so rosy, either, if you were a person of color, or gay, or jewish, etc.
Yes, yes, on a single salary in the 1950s (if you were white and male) you could buy a clunker gashog deathtrap, drive home from work and sit on the lazyboy drinking garbage beer, and watch tv news on a 10-inch black&white to hear all about the latest river to catch on fire and "the negro problem," while your wife cooked you dinner. But aside from those glorious highlights, the time period sucked.
Good point @cshserbak!
What people forget is how much lower a standard of living middle class had back then than now. Cars, house size, quality of food, travel choices... Frankly, what passed for a pretty decent standard of living then would be considered kind of crappy now. And that is even without the higher standard of living technology has given us, like each of us having supercomputers in our pockets that can instantaneously and for free summon a large portion of the accumulated knowledge of our species. Oh, and stuff like a cancer diagnosis is no longer a death sentence.
But many of those things are not concrete improvements in quality of life. We can pretend that having bigger houses, more movies and more travel options are quality of life improvements, but they aren't.
Having a bigger house is actually a decrease in the quality of life for most people.
"Having a bigger house is actually a decrease in the quality of life for most people."
That must be why small houses cost so much more than large ones!
Bought our first house in 1962 after saving half of my salary for a year. I Was making 5K a year. Paid $500 down on a $16,400 house. My wife went back to work when the youngest was in 1st grade.
There was a time - back in the 50's and maybe 60's - when one income could support 2 kids, a dog, a stay at home parent (free childcare) AND a house
That time still exists for those who really want it. But most people would reject the 1950s lifestyle today, which was characterized by:
*Much smaller houses.
*Only one car.
*No car AC, no GPS, no airbags.
*No AC in the house. Very few dishwashers.
*One TV, black and white.
*No cell phones.
*No cable.
*No internet.
*No Netflix or streaming networks.
*No air travel (quite rare in those days even for upper middle class people; and virtually non-existent for the bottom 80%).
*No statins, no semaglutide, no MRNA vaccines, no corrective lenses for cataracts, no MRIs, no viagra, no SSRIs, No CT scans, no PET scans, no monoclonal antibody therapy.
*No 60% of high school grads going off to college.
*No health clubs.
*A far blander and more routine diet with a lot less available in the way of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as ethnic cuisines. Good luck getting authentic Sichuan or Oaxacan dishes in Eisenhower's America.
You are missing climate change. Our ability to recharge by spending some time in Nature has been sorely curtailed.
Want to go camping in the West? Forest fires and bad air quality mean a mountain vacation is chancey. Want to go camping in the East? It is excruciatingly hot to be outdoors in the summer and, this past summer, all the trees were dying. It simply wasn't enjoyable. We didn't even have barbecues this summer it was so unpleasant.
Want to go for a walk in the autumn woods? Still too damn hot, and the trees were still dying.
That's absurd. Climate change is real, but the ability of people to enjoy the great outdoors is very much alive.
Amazon's call center is in India and they literally refuse to take or deal with technical support for end customers. They will stall and lie to you and pretend following the law is the kind, extensive thing to do. I sat on the phone for hours after my order of a PlayStation was stolen from their own courier and they would not sell me another. I would hate to be a business or some medical patient and be dependent upon any limited supply equipment and just be told I was shit out of luck, they pretended they sold it to me already! And at the end shunted me to a lady whose entire job was to lie about who was in charge and what she could do.
Americans are usually a practical people. I don't understand why, given the ubiquity of online shopping, delivery lockers haven't become more common.
Sorry for your loss. A stolen SPS is a pain in the neck.
Well laid out. Numerous economic factors have improved. Does it mean structural problems don't exist, especially those which continue to increase income inequality? No, but at least certain factors are trending well overall.
This should give us an opportunity to dive into weighty areas like healthcare and immigration management, but the GOP is too busy rolling out a circus.
You forgot the price of eggs! Up over 37% in the last year, almost entirely because of bird flu.
Not true here, though in the last year eggs have doubled in my town, which is served solely by Safeway. They point out that it's because all their eggs are cage-free now (says so right on the box). I never bought cage-free before, cause they cost twice as much. No choice now.
Now my ear is bent every time the subject of groceries comes up -- by people complaining about eggs and 'inflation'. Is that inflation? Nope. Safeway's just selling pricier eggs.
They are selling higher margin eggs.
> Is that inflation? Nope. Safeway's just selling pricier eggs.
Actually, that *is* inflation.
When it comes to whining, my world experience is that it increases with wealth and income, once you pass the enough-food-and-a-bicycle level. A good way to be rid of it among your neighbors is to move to, say, India. That incumbent parties tend to be voted out in rich countries is, I think, at least in part because they're rich.
When it comes to stress, my experience is that non-mortgage debt is the biggest factor. Not just directly but also indirectly because a small misfortune can push you over the edge.
Kevin is a smart guy, that’s why I read his blog. But he is a partisan Lefty. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing (though not ideal). It simply becomes apparent when Kevin or anyone else writes up a list of serious problems with our country and conveniently leaves out some of the most major issues that can be traced right back to … the LEFT!
So consider number 6 from Kevin’s List:
“Fox News and its companions have spent the past three decades hellbent on making us livid with anger over everything. They do this solely because it makes them money.”
Fine. I agree. But that’s barely even half of the story. The other half (or thereabouts) involves the Left. It is the Left that has waged a decades long campaign, one that has recently accelerated, of censorship, intimidation, bullying, and indoctrination.
Kevin reminds me of an average Paul Krugman column. Krugman has been saying for years (or more) that the great story of our time is Republican extremism. It’s not. The problem is extremism: and it’s on both the Right and the Left.
So here’s Greg Lukianoff with an accurate description of the 21st century Leftist scourge on our society:
“We define cancel culture as the uptick around 2014 of campaigns to get people fired, expelled, deplatformed, or otherwise punished for speech that is (or would be) protected by the First Amendment and the climate of conformity that results.
“The statistics show that we are going to be studying this period of repression 50 to 100 years from now, just like we study the Red Scare.
“In the last nine and a half years, we know of more than 1,000 campaigns to get professors punished for their free speech or academic freedom. Of those, about two-thirds succeeded in getting the professor punished, and almost 200 of them, nearly twice the number estimated for the Red Scare, ended up with the professor getting fired.”
The Leftist assault on free speech (among other things) was undoubtedly a factor helping to elect Trump. For one thing, it was almost certainly a fear of being canceled that led Kamala Harris to adopt some of the absurdly far Left positions that were later used against her in the 2024 campaign.
But also, people are just tired of the Leftist overlords trying to destroy the lives of anyone who believes in equal opportunity (rather than equity) or dares to honestly state that trans women are not in fact women.
This problem has been one of the most corrosive elements of our society for a solid ten years at least: and if the Left can’t fix it then we can all look forward to 8 years of President Vance. But first we have to acknowledge it. And, on that front, things aren’t looking so good.
"For one thing, it was almost certainly a fear of being canceled"
Almost certainly? Was it?
"It is the Left that has waged a decades long campaign, one that has recently accelerated, of censorship, intimidation, bullying, and indoctrination."
Pure fiction. When people stop supporting your work and call you an a-hole for being a creep, abuser, or racist that's not censorship. It's people telling you that they are sick of your abusive, racist, misogynist words and actions and telling you to kindly f off. Sorry, but actions have consequences whether you like them or not.
The First Amendment gives you a right to speak your mind, it does not give you a right to a microphone or a right to not face consequences for your words.
lol.
LEFTISTS!
CANCEL CULTURE!
KAMALATHEEXTREMIST!!!
TRANS!!!!
poor snowflake Leo. He's a testament to the scope of problem #6.
I am surprised that you are not getting pummeled here because a lot of the censorious Left patrols this comment section looking for infractions.
" . . . a lot of the civilized Left patrols this comment section looking for assholes and jerks."
FIFY
😄😄😄👍👍👍
@tango:
I believe you are speaking sarcastically. Many of the comments in reply to my post are exact confirmations of the type of censorious Leftist behavior I’m talking about. It would be funny if it didn’t keep helping to elect Republicans like Trump 😐
Obviously you aren't being censored.
You're being called an idiot.
You keep proving this. Twice in two posts. You're 2 for 2!
Toughen up you fragile flower.
No, @Leo, I was not being sarcastic --- when I wrote it, there were only a couple comments; I see now you ARE getting pummeled for not following the orthodoxy. As could be predicted. And yes, it is exactly the problem and exactly what is costing the Democratic Party lots of votes.
Although I do not think the Prog Left is QUITE as bad as the MAGA folks.
Even if it happens (marginally) less, the Left thought-polices with an air of mean-girl condescension that makes the overall experience worse.
Leo is the orthodoxy. Telling the left and the little people to shut up and cease critiquing the important people who are harming others, is the orthodoxy.
The gatekeepers have lost their ability to quickly stamp out dissenting voices, so they are throwing epic fits online. Protecting the important people from having their views challenged or their feewings hurt has always been the Orthodoxies prime directive, just like it is Leo's today.
It's funny that the Leo's and others would see themselves as challenging the Orthodoxy when they are the ones who have always controlled the message and the direction of the party. Down with the little people is certainly an appealing call to action for some.
Hey Leo,
We could debate what's happening in higher education. Maybe we could consider the crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech and what guys like DeSantis and Ben Sasse have done to academic freedom in Florida. Those are examples of politicians imposing right-wing ideology in education. The general tilt of higher ed may be toward the left (smart people lean that way) but it's not an ideology imposed by Democratic pols. It's a cultural and academic issue.
Meanwhile, in the midst of breathtaking corruption, Republican politicians are rolling back hard-won rights of women and minorities, turning us into a Jim Crow nation again, while destroying the democracy that our Founding Fathers bestowed us two and a half centuries ago.
The idea that the Democratic Party, imperfect as it may be, is in any way as extreme and radical as the Republican Party is, is absurd.
Here's some free speech for you: Go fuck yourself!
Please cite links and references.
the Left that has waged a decades long campaign, one that has recently accelerated, of censorship, intimidation, bullying, and indoctrination.
Kitchen Heat bothering the Bros?
Get out of the kitchen.
@dilbertdogbert:
"Please cite links and references."
There is a three paragraph quote in my post, and it's full of statistics.
I cannot open your eyes for you.
Either you are willing to accept reality, or you're not.
It's up to you, not me.
Kevin is the paradigm of a centrist. Describing him as a leftist means that you have no knowledge of real leftists.
@Lawnorder:
I referred to Kevin as a "Partisan Lefty." Now, it's true that our socio-political terminology can be imprecise, but in my own mind that's not the same thing as a Leftist. I reserve the term "Leftist" for extremists. You can find a lot of unhinged Leftists, for example, at the dailykos website (and sometimes here in the comments of Kevin's blog). But if Kevin himself were a Leftist, I would not be commenting here. I might check out his writing to see what the latest Leftist lunacy was, but it's highly unlikely I would attempt to engage in any way. Where there is extremism, there is no receptivity, and hence no point.
"Except for #6, of course. That one is truly an American catastrophe."
Not entirely. Rupert is spreading that poison in Europe and Australia also.
And for #10, I propose that the proper response to the first 9 is helplessness followed by ambivalence. We can't fix these things anyway. Politics in the USA today are not even the proper mechanism for negotiating solutions to any of them.
If you pretend, like so many did during the last election campaign, that "Trump alone can fix it" or there's a "New Way Forward—to a future where everyone has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead" then I think they are just doing misdirection. America will not be great again and there is no such future.
Politics today is a bad movie and a distraction which all kinds of people are monetizing for fun and profit. They are not solving problems. And even when they accidentally solve a problem it's because the media and political people weren't involved. Good luck.
Many people, from my experience, are convinced that they're suffering because they hear about others who aren't but should be. I have heard many complaints about "influencers posting videos on YouTube" who are raking in millions of dollars, just for bragging about the high-end goods they consume and trips they take. I'm sure you can come up with other examples. It doesn't matter if it's true - the stories about the Undeserving Rich make the difficulties of regular lives seem so, well, undeserved.
"More generally, as cities become more crowded they also become more stressful."
This doesn't have to be true: life in Amsterdam or Paris or Barcelona is pretty chill most of the time. It's a choice that English-speaking societies (as well as other societies) make to have their cities be chaotic, resource-constrained, crime-ridden, traffic-clogged, work-dominated, unwelcoming-to-families, etc. that in turn makes English-speaking cities stressful.
And your level of baseline stress matters a lot here in how much even English-speaking cities increase your stress. As a gay man from the South, moving to cities in my adulthood dramatically lowered my stress levels. No longer did I have to hide my relationships or mannerisms from everybody at work, restaurants, stores, etc. or be subjected to people attacking me or giving me shittier service for being openly gay. My stress levels caused by urbanism are pretty low *despite* living near the center of a metropolitan area of 5 million. YMMV, but I bet lots of minorities also feel less stress being Muslim or Jewish or Black or disabled or whatever living in cities that actually have other people like them so they fewer stares for being "different." These days, my biggest sources of stress are (1) Republicanism/Trumpism/stupidism and (2) unfettered capitalism.
Yeah, he's way off on his view of city stress. But its a popular view with retired, well off guys in the burbs.
Kevin should try on the supposed stress free lifestyle of crumbling tiny towns and rural meth hotbeds before opining too broadly.
I live on the outskirts of a small town; it's not crumbling and it's not a meth hotbed. You really need to be careful about stereotyping.
Kevin completely contradicts himself in this article, he goes from "life isn't so bad, by every metric, we're doing better" to "people have to run faster to keep their place" in his first comment afterwards about changes in life.
He wonders why people express dismay at how hard life is, and then lists very good reasons for feeling worse off.
And his original premise that everything is better is wrong - he doesn't measure time as having value, he falls for the grift that everything is measured accurately by finances - time for oneself is just not valued.
Consider it a not-so-clever way of saying:
"By all the measures we have historically used, we're doing better than before. Yet people don't feel better than before, which means we ought to inspect the measures we use, and potentially adopt new ones, perhaps even radically new ones"
It's the polarization I think. All the reasons you posit are valid but there is also that for most of the population the glass is half full. The void in the glass is just very differently viewed by the polarized populace.
One of the reasons I view the current world so negatively is because of the trendline I thought we were on. From 2001-2016 I saw things getting better. 9/11 was horrible but we mostly came together as a nation and the worst knee jerk reactions seemed like they were fading into the rearview mirror. The financial crisis never affected anyone I knew and it looked like we were putting the necessary regulations back in place to prevent if from happening again. Obama got elected and it appeared we were getting past our racist past. Marriage equality became the law of the land. All the trend lines looked good. Then Trump happened. I thought OK that was just a stumble. We got things back on track... and then my fellow citizens decided to pour out all our progress and leave me with a less than half-full glass.
A lot depends on when your timeline starts, I suppose, so different generations may view things differently. I see 9/11 as the moment the nation completely lost its mind. We have not yet recovered. I'd also say the election of Reagan in 1980 was another turning point, and not in a good way, though the economy from 1983 to 2000 was good in ways (if you weren't on the losing side of increasing inequality) and those were mostly feel-good years.
The economy now is on a good trajectory, and even if Trump doesn't screw it up and the economy continues to hum, I doubt the nation as a whole will be feeling good about it.
I look at this list and wonder if these are issues that upset people then what could a president do about them to make a noticeable difference, and do it within four years so that they have a decent chance at reelection?
Nothing.
A president might be able to improve the healthcare system in some ways. Obama did that and it was a political loser for most of his presidency. Biden did good work in many areas and the political benefit he got was zip.
One of the flaws in the discourse around elections is that media tends to judge a president based on factors that a president has no control over. What presidents can control are often too long-term for the benefits to accrue in time to get political benefit.
Republicans appear to have mastered the necessary skills for modern-day politicking. Do nothing, lie about your achievements, and blame the other party for anything goes wrong.
Democrats, meanwhile, are expected to solve every problem for every person in the country. Biden presides over record-setting jobs growth, a reduction of pandemic-induced inflation that no one predicted was possible, spurred massive investment in manufacturing and green energy, but people are pissed off! Betty doesn't like seeing the homeless person at the bus stop, Billy's boss wants him to work late on Friday, and Dick and Jane now have to pay 18% more for bacon for the kids. It's too bad, really, because democracy had a good run. But autocracy, here we come.
I tend to like a good Joseph Harbin post, and like this one. The last two paragraphs say it all for me.
For example, Trump is not going to have any sort of "arduous" walk back -- no! For a Dem politician a walk back could very well be arduous, but for a modern Rep government is a joke anyway, so a specific policy is also a joke. There is no walking back, by the way, on (1) guns, (2) God, (3) lower taxes, and (4) less regulation. Those are delivered, as well as the super deliverable of sliming liberals at every opportunity.
Dem politicians simply do not operate under the same set of expectations. Which is why we do not dominate.
Republicans appear to have mastered the necessary skills for modern-day politicking
Republicans lost three of the last four elections!
You mean the presidential election.
If you had kids or elder parents, you might feel differently. Also, I think it is income-related. If you have a decent income, a home you can comfortably afford, and health insurance that isn't constantly changing, your life is much less stressful than most people. Plus you're retired and don't have to commute.
The cold war kept Goldwater from making it to the White House. There was real concern about a nuclear war, which weeded out nut jobs. Today, Goldwater would be MAGA enough....
And yes, someone with two cars, TV in every room, a swimming pool, and goes on cruises every year can insist the country is going down the tubes.
Zero mention of inequality and stratification?
I would argue that we ARE closer to world war than at any point since that chart begins.
But not close enough to be worried about it.
We came very close in 1983 (Able Archer) but yeah, people spend 100 times more energy worrying about climate change than nuclear war, when it should be just the reverse. (The former is terrible, mind you, but A) we're making progress, and B) while activists often claim otherwise, climate change isn't actually a true existential threat).
I used to argue, as you've done here, that climate change isn't actually a true existential threat.
I have reversed my position on this. It isn't an existential threat in the sense that it will end human life, or even most of it.
However, it will likely completely destroy patterns of settlement and food production, lead to mass migration which in turn will lead to worldwide violence, and generally degrade what we call civilization in ways small and large. Millions, perhaps billions, will die.
I think it's OK to call that existential, even if it doesn't compare with the results of all out nuclear war.
"Commuting in rush hour traffic is more stressful than it was 50 years ago because freeways are more jammed ..."
Especially driving with manual transmission in Los Angeles.
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"More generally, as cities become more crowded they also become more stressful. This is well known, but not something the YIMBY crowd likes to acknowledge."
People choose where to live for a variety of reasons: schools, micro-climate, closeness to work, and density. YIMBY wants to deprive us of the last criteria.
Permanent culture war is fatiguing for those on the front lines and those who try to avoid the battles.
Daily life in America is designed to be exhausting, lots of items on that list build upon each other. Money helps, but it doesn't actually fix it. It can be demoralizing when people realize that they are somewhat wealthy and can't buy their way out of the exhaustion and frustration.
Again, for reasons that escape me, Kevin heaps blame on Fox while ignoring the far greater reach of talkback radio that long predates cable TV. Hannity's radio audience is 3-4 times bigger than his TV one. Tens of millions of Americans spend hours every weekday in their cars, listening to a non-stop torrent of feigned anger and right-wing lies about the way the left is out to get them. No wonder they're permanently pissed off. Why does he think Republicans got so agitated about car companies no longer making AM radios standard fittings?