Were times ever saner in your life?

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

16. The Election of '72 was my first political memory ...

Vietnam death counts on the nightly news. The tail end of Duck and Cover at the elementary schools. Real fear of nuclear Armageddon.

The world was in more danger then - maybe.

But I think the USA is in more danger now.

Standards, norms, and structures that might have been bent or occasionally ignored before are now being destroyed and discarded right and left. Institutions built over the decades of the post-WWII era are being gutted. We are losing allies and influence worldwide and we may never get them back, or at least not fully and not soon.

Even from a historical perspective I think this is getting Red Scare bad, hopefully not Great Depression or Civil War bad, at least not yet.

But in my lifetime, I think this is the worst.