“Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. Strong people create good times. That’s the history of the world, over and over and over again.” — from a piano-scored Tony Robbins interview, posted four or five months ago.”
The lack of opportunities afforded to minorities aside, American good times, largely created and fortified by strong or at least morally decent people, happened between the late ’40s and the mid ’60s.
Astounding, convulsive, turbulent times — “bad” times if you insist, but quite the rollercoaster ride and highly adventurous in some respects — happened between the mid ’60s and mid ’70s.
And then came the Carter years, largely defined by undermining currents and bacchanalian distractions — economic lethargy, cocaine, Studio 54, “Some Girls”, etc.
Then came the Reagan and Bush ’80s — good times for the greedheads, “go for it, guys…take advantage of our laissez-faire attitudes, get as rich as you can because the lights are green”, etc. Charge as you go and worry about it later created fewer savings accounts and a weakening of the traditional American fibre.
The weak people of the aughts elected Dubya, and then, traumatized by 9/11, brought in bad times in the Middle East.
The Obama years were somewhat progressive (Affordable Care Act, gay marriage) but also saw the growth of the lunatic bumblefuck right, which eventually gave rise to Trumpism, which gave rise to wokester terror and the all-but-certain electoral ruin of the left come November.
We are now in very, very bad times with a significant portion of American citizens having supported the Jan. 6th insurrection and ready to take up arms against the government.