LightfighterThis is a very accurate graph of anything in my lifetime in the US.
StarkRG
condret 
@StarkRG @Lightfighter but at least they had decent economic policies until reagan i think
@condret @Lightfighter By what metric? For the white, middle-class standard living in suburbs, sure. Even that really only existed for a couple decades anyway and was mostly a fiction built up during the cold war to show how much better American capitalism was than Soviet communism. Once it became clear that the Soviet Union was imploding, "the economy" became just a buzzword for politicians to rave about when they're in power, and rant about when they're not.
@StarkRG @Lightfighter Reagan redistributed from the bottom to the top. His presidency stands paradigmatic shift away from the ambitions of the New Deal and the Great Society towards tax cuts for the rich. The USA had better economic policies befor Reagan.
@condret @Lightfighter For a somewhat brief period of time (mostly just the 50s, 60s, and sorta some of the 70s, so roughly 11-12% of the history of the nation), for a relatively small subset of the population (veterans of WWII specifically and white, upper-middle-income suburban dwellers that adhered to social norms), yes, it can be seen that way. What Reagan put an end to was an interlude, a show put on for international prestige that had run its course and was already on its way out anyway.
@condret @Lightfighter I'm not saying that Reagan wasn't a massive piece of shit, I just don't think you can credit him for the state of affairs in the US. In addition to the back-room, secret societies (like the Bilderberg meetings) constantly steering society towards things that benefit them specifically and individually, there are many key figures that stand out. McCarthy comes to mind, all but wiping out the entirety of the American left wing, something it's barely begun to recover from.
@StarkRG @Lightfighter Interesting that you mention Bilderberg. I alwaya thought that was a distraction from other secret societies.
@condret I doubt it, they're pretty secretive about their goings-on. They're definitely not the only such group manipulating things, some do it out in the open, some do it semi-secretively (like exclusive fraternities and official-but-clandestine government agencies like the CIA), and some do it very secretly indeed. That's not paranoia talking, we know of a lot of them, and can safely surmise the existence of others (including informal groups like the people formerly in Epstein's inner circle)