Kevin Drum tells everyone to buck up. Life in these United States really isn’t more miserable than it’s ever been. He posted a video of Congressman Jamal Bowman saying:
Young people are TIRED. They’re tired of growing up with forever wars, with no healthcare, with crumbling infrastructure. Young people have every right to demand better from their leaders. It’s their job to.
Kevin responds:
Just stop it. Joe Biden ended the Afghanistan war and cut American drone strikes nearly to zero. The US is not currently fighting any major wars and in 2022, for the first time in decades, reported no civilian deaths due to US combat.
Health insurance coverage has steadily increased among the young for the past decade:
And infrastructure is not “crumbling” by any stretch of rhetoric. Even the always dour American Society of Civil Engineers says as much: its most recent report gives US infrastructure its highest grade in more than a quarter of a century.¹ Spending on infrastructure has increased by a quarter since 2000:
There is a relentless drumbeat of claims on both sides of the aisle that America is falling apart at the seams and _________ has it worse than ever in living memory. But it’s just not true. Wages are high for every demographic group you can name; life satisfaction is steady; unemployment is low; drug abuse overall is down; our educational system is good; poverty is declining; we have more entrepreneurs than any country in the world by a wide margin; democracy is alive and well; our economy is the envy of the world; social welfare spending is generous; and a future of driverless cars, artificial intelligence, medical revolutions, and abundant energy is practically on our doorsteps. Even our demographic problems are about the least bad of any advanced economy—thanks, in part, to our supposed problem of too much illegal immigration.
Everyone has personal problems. Every country has national problems. The fact that we have problems is completely normal. But honestly, our problems right now are about as mild as they’ve been in our entire history.
¹Their 2021 report gave infrastructure a grade of C-. By ACSE standards this is roughly an A+.
He’s right that it isn’t just young people by any stretch. I had an exchange with the grocery checker at my local Ralphs about how everything’s gone to hell in a hand basket and how her grandmother had it better back in the 30s when a dollar went so much further. For real.
I blame Trump. His never ending moaning and wailing permeates our entire culture and now everyone’s doing it.
And here I am whining about the whining. You can ‘t escape it.