Why does it feel like things in America are so bad, even though, by several measurements, things are going reasonably well? In NY Mag, Frank Rich says our woe can be traced back to the 2008 bust. It was then, he argues, that America Stopped Believing in the American Dream. “The shadow it would cast is so dark that a decade later, even our current run of ostensible prosperity and peace does not mitigate the one conviction that still unites all Americans: Everything in the country is broken. Not just Washington, which failed to prevent the financial catastrophe and has done little to protect us from the next, but also race relations, health care, education, institutional religion, law enforcement, the physical infrastructure, the news media, the bedrock virtues of civility and community. Nearly everything has turned to crap, it seems, except Peak TV.” (So maybe the right move is just to binge watch shows until things seem better?)