The United States of High Anxiety

Soaring stock markets and dwindling unemployment rates mask a deeper and pervasive feeling of increasing hopelessness in the hearts and minds of 70% of all Americans. America is not getting better for most of us. 70% of this nation has seen real-buying power stagnate as higher housing, food, fuel and healthcare costs have eroded any nominal gains in wages and salaries for all but the highest earners in the land. Dwindling unemployment numbers do not tell you that a large part of those new “jobs” are either part-time or in an unstable gig economy with no fringe benefits (like healthcare and retirement pay)… or in jobs like hospitality and food services where pay levels have always been low.

That the gains in wages and salaries reported not only fail to take notice of those higher costs but are based on averages. Since the top of the food chain has never made more money, they pull those averages up even though the vast majority of us really make the same or less than we did ten or fifteen years ago. Private sector unions protecting wages and working conditions? So over! Only 6.7% of our private workforce is still unionized, and red state legislatures are not remotely interested in raising their minimum wage. Tax cuts for those who do not need them and cutting Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid? All about that!

Upward mobility, a hallmark of the American dream? Forgetaboutit! Read about that in the history books! With the soaring cost of post-secondary school education rising way beyond the cost of living, with financial aid vaporizing except for expensive student loans, young adults often begin life with lower earning potential while having to service student loans, often for decades. Healthcare? If you live in a red state and don’t have fringe benefits at work or have your own money, sorry! Medical bankruptcies are on the rise.

All those Trump-promised high-paying new jobs? Ask the folks at Carrier (the air conditioning folks) in Indiana, where Trump “stopped” the export of jobs to Mexico, what happened after the spotlight moved on. Yup, lots of those jobs still moved out-of-country. Ask the coal miners about their promised flood of shiny new jobs in the coal mines of West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. Not happening. Never will. The world has just moved on. Environmental pollution, however, still seems to slam those masses of “never will work in those mines and pits again” workers very hard. Regulations are vaporizing. It’s that way across the country, unless you are at the top of the white collar economic ladder.

More manufacturing jobs from all that reshoring fomented by Trump promises? Almost all went to the automated plants, low on labor but high on tech, to enrich the coffers of those mega-rich Trump cronies. Workers? Sorry, that’s not how stuff is made anymore.

Gun violence? Semi-automatic weapons and mass killings? Children slaughtered in our schools? We’ve never seen worse. NRA and the Second Amendment (which has never been absolute)? For every one justifiable gun homicide there are thirty that are not. But Trump, hero to the NRA, wants more guns in society. He totally buys into the big NRA lie: “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Anyone, criminals and the mentally ill, can get a gun somewhere these days. There are 15 million semi-automatic AR-15’s in this country! Not to mention that so many “good guys” somehow became “bad guys” along the way.

Trump is clearly making America “worse” again, even as our global influence sinks to a new low and trade wars threaten everywhere. China’s reaction to new American tariffs. Raise their own? Yup… or worse. They just stopped importing tons of American agricultural goods, like sorghum. Just ask those American farmers how they feel about Trump’s trade policies. Red voters in red states getting screwed by the man who was their savior.

But the most telling impact of Donald Trump’s imprint on America is the rise in the level of anxiety felt over most of the United States. “A new survey from the American Psychiatric Assn. reveals that 39% of Americans feel more anxious now than they did a year ago.

“That’s more than double the 19% of Americans who feel less anxious now than at this time last year… (Another 39% of survey respondents said their anxiety level is about the same, and 3% weren’t sure.)

“Worries about safety topped the list of anxieties, with 36% of Americans describing themselves as extremely anxious about ‘keeping myself or my family safe.’… About 31% said they were ‘somewhat anxious’ on this score.

“Financial fears were close behind. The prospect of paying bills and other expenses made 35% of survey respondents feel extremely anxious, and 32% said it made them somewhat anxious.

“And then there were concerns about health. The 28% of Americans who reported being extremely anxious about their medical condition were joined by 39% who said they were somewhat anxious about it.

“All this angst contributed to a 5-point increase in the country’s ‘national anxiety score,’ the psychiatry group reported this week in conjunction with its annual meeting in New York… The metric, which is measured on a scale from 0 to 100, rose from 46 in 2017 to 51 in 2018.” Los Angeles Times, May 11^th.

As a deeply polarized red vs. blue state, rural vs. urban values, traditional white protestant vs multicultural diversity battles hurtle this nation towards an ultimate breakup of the United States of America, as the real impact of artificial intelligence-drive automation accelerates, there is little left holding us together. We are even more divided that we were in the middle of the 19^th century when the Civil War exploded. Unless we begin listening to “the other” and accept that we are seriously different but can find a modus vivendi – something that is not going to happen under Donald Trump and his ilk – this country is marching in lock-step toward “totally over and fractured.”

Maybe the X and Y generation, frustrated with their parent’s intolerance and political missteps – hating both mainstream political parties as they are currently configured – can unite within themselves, usurp their failed elders, and hold the United States… er… United.

I’m Peter Dekom, and history has taught us that “a house divided cannot stand,” but obviously, too many just keep dividing us more.