You're comparing against an ideal, not reality, not history. Let us not forget the recent past where things were not so great. From a global perspective much o

You're comparing against an ideal, not reality, not history. Let us not forget the recent past where things were not so great. From a global perspective much of the developed world existed under oppressive totalitarian governments up until the end of the Cold War. Also, as to the US alone, look back on: the McCarthyism, Jim Crow, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc. Yeah, things aren't great right now, in some regards things are pretty awful. But things have always been awful, we just weren't noticing or we wrote that off as being normal.