The truth is America was never perfect but much more prosperous decades ago with far less financial inequality. Over the years we outsourced our domestic industry, liberalized and consolidated our institutions such as our educational system (back 60 years ago only a small percentage went to college and it was far cheaper, most people joined the trade or got menial jobs right after high school). Federal-backed predatory student loans did not exist in those days... you could either afford the education or had to work like pretty much everyone else. However, there was plenty more opportunity and the US Dollar still had it's purchasing power backed by gold (aka shit was far cheaper). Government was limited and govt spending heavily regulated so there was actual democracy and freedom. Congress did not spend beyond the nation's means like they are doing today. Anti-trust laws were actually enforced to prevent monopolization unlike today. Fractional reserve banking was once considered fraud, not defended fiscal policy.
This all started to slowly change over the decades but after 9/11 the country suddenly drastically started getting far worse far faster since 2001. Think of it like a person walking in slow motion off a giant cliff and then suddenly time speeds up during the fall down. That's what we are living in today.
Also, there was more of a national consensus and agreement among the population as to what was right and what was wrong. What was ethical and moral and what was not. That consensus among most of America kept crime low, it kept communities safer and it kept bad inherently corrupt people behind bars or locked up in mental institutions, where those kind belong. Today? That consensus has been subverted and broken.
Immigration laws eventually laxed under Reagan. Feminism subverted young women's minds which eventually led to higher divorce rates and broken families. Drug and alcohol misuse became normalized and pop culture. Third world gangster violent slum culture replaced Jazz and the fine arts. Endless wars for profit became the default foreign policy. Endless government and corporate growth and centralization of power became the domestic policy. Bailout the greedy Epstein class criminals, let everyone else go bankrupt and die. After all, third world policy creates third world reality.