Around the turn of the twenty-first century, however, the trend line started reversing. This didn’t begin instantaneously on January 1, 2000. Not everything was great before then; not everything is terrible now. And the trajectory may again return to being positive. But around this time, as the internet began its intrusion into daily life, the causes of America’s decline started to take hold. A national addiction to social media, rampant tribalism, and America’s flawed political structure all combined to turbocharge irrationality and, in turn, degrade and destabilize the body politic.
