Americans are in a sour, pessimistic mood. A recent Gallup poll shows that about eight out of ten adults believe rough economic times are ahead. By overwhelming numbers, Americans foresee rising crime rates, more political conflict in Washington, D.C., and China’s rise at the expense of the U.S.-led world order.
As the saying goes, when you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. The turmoil of the 1970s preceded the growth decades of the Reagan–Clinton era. Similarly, many Americans in the late 19th century were pessimistic amid class warfare and a Long Depression that lasted decades. But, like green shoots under winter ice, new technologies – electrification, refrigeration, the internal combustion engine, the telephone – were emerging that would soon propel the American standard of living beyond that of European nobles of the past. Today, technological advances in medicine and computing are emerging that could similarly bring undreamt-of benefits to our future.