And yet, despite all of that, a blue collar wage was enough to own a home, a car for the breadwinner, a second car for the stay-at-home wife, healthcare, two children and their education. The economic base indicators were just way better than they are for my generation.
Also, politicians actually did something about all the crises you mentioned. The threat of nuclear war and other weapons of mass destructions got tackled by non-proliferation programs or outright bans (on chemical and biological weapons). Threats to the environment such as lead, acid rain or the ozone hole got combatted by banning lead and sulphur in fuels and CFC gases as refrigerants. The islamist terror threat got combatted by carpet-bombing Afghanistan, Iraq and a number of other hellholes, as well as upgrading airports and planes. The oil crisis got under control by introducing consumption limits and an expansion of domestic production to a point the US is a net exporter of oil.
In contrast, none of the modern polycrises got tackled. The financial world has deregulated to the point that we have yet another impending collapse, with actual giant banks like Credit Suisse going down. Migration and its causes aren't addressed, instead we build borders and threaten people with deathly conditions on their travel. Pandemic prevention has gone down the drain so hard that wearing masks and getting vaccines got politicized. Climate change is outright denied. If you don't get top degrees you have virtually no chance at getting a halfway decent paying job. Would-be parents, even young children can see all of that deliberate inaction.
> and we probably need to do something about mental health (which may involve doing something about addiction to social media)
Social media is an useful scapegoat - the mental health crisis (and I'd say also the drug abuse epidemic) is a direct result of our hyper-competitive, individualist everyone-for-themselves environment and the above-mentioned inaction of leadership to crises.
