Here.  America went off the rails with the election of Reagan in 1980, but the truth is that that period of time now looks really quite sane by comparison to the past fifteen years.  The thing that bodes ill for the future of this country is that there is no sign of a return to normalcy:  the crazies just get crazier and louder, helped in large part by the Internet, and by the fact that one of the two viable political parties in the United States is now fully captured by the crazies, aided and abetted by the most venal and short-sighted elements of the American plutocracy.  Under those circumstances, it is probably at least notable, as Robert Paul Wolff observes, that Obama managed to accomplish several things since the election:  ending discrimination against gay men and women in the military; a new nuclear arms treaty; and a stealth stimulus package, in the form of payroll tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits, though at the cost of enriching the plutocracy further.   The latter may yet prove to be a bad deal, but it may well have been the only deal available.  (For a different take than Wolff's, though, do see this.)

The sad fact remains, though, that the "center" of American politics (except with respect to discrimination against minority groups) has moved steadily to the right for thirty years, so much so that the center of the Demoractic party would have been Nixon Republicans in 1970, and the Republican Party is squarely where the unhinged reactionary right was two generations ago.   If that trend continues, things can only end very badly for this country.

But for a more hopeful view, do see Wolff's entertaining predictions for 2011.

And as a counterpart to the crazies, here's a nice report on some under-appreciated "good guys and gals."