Seriously, WTF has happened to our country?

[merrily]

18. Ask rather, What can we do to make things better?

Why is it that every time Democrats get unhappy with the status quo, they start praising POS Republicans like Nixon, Eisenhower and Goldwater?

Nixon didn't pass shit. His Democratic Congress was the only part of the government passing bills.

Helping the Congress and the President to do better were very active liberals in the population. And, on top of that, the entire Republican caucus was not batshit spiteful and totally indifferent to their fellow USians.

As for what happened, the one word answer is greed.

More specifically, lobbyists got changes in the laws that had been working well for the majority, some of them dating back (conceptually) to Teddy Roosevelt. Antitrust laws, regulatory schemes, New Deal securities laws, New Deal bankruptcy laws, tax laws, Glass Steagall and so on.

As a result, companies were able to get massive, no longer caring much about human safety or their communities. They screwed unions and workers and took jobs overseas.

And, if you think that was all Republicans or all Reagan, you need to clear your head.

Of course, things are more complicated than the above, but answering the OP question completely would take a several volume book collection.

But, what can we do about it? And, if we knew, would we do act?