America is crumbling, David Brooks, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, said today.
In his assessment, the analyst addressed different behaviors and situations of Americans that reveal a crisis.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, motor vehicle fatalities were up 18.4 percent, even from 2020.
Contributing factors, according to the agency, include driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding and not wearing a seat belt.
Brooks cited a Substack article by Matthew Yglesias, according to which not only did reckless driving increase, but the number of altercations on airplanes soared, the murder rate rose in cities, as did drug overdoses, among other factors that corrode society.
“Schools saw an increase in both minor incidents, such as students speaking in class, and more serious problems, such as fights and possession of weapons,” he said, citing a report in The Washington Post.
He also referred to a document from the Institute for Family Studies, according to which drug deaths increased almost continuously for more than 20 years, but “overdoses soared especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
In October, CNN published an article titled Hate crime complaints in the US rise to the highest level in 12 years, according to the FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that between 2019 and 2020 the number of attacks targeting black people, for example, rose to 2,871 from 1,972, he said.
He noted that the number of firearms purchases skyrocketed: In January 2021, more than two million were sold, The Washington Post reported, “an increase of 80 percent year-on-year and the third-highest total recorded in a month.”
On the other hand, he addressed the increase in polarization, hatred, anger and fear among the population.
He also stated that “something darker and deeper seems to be happening: a loss of solidarity, an increase in estrangement and long-term hostility. This is what it feels like to live in a society that is dissolving both from the bottom up and vice versa.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
The short answer: I don’t know. I also do not know what is causing the high rates of depression, suicide and loneliness that haunted Americans even before the pandemic and which are the sad face of hostility and recklessness that I just described, “he commented.
Brooks asserted that “there must also be some spiritual or moral problem at the core of this.”
In recent years, and in a wide range of different behaviors, Americans act in less pro-social and relational ways and in more antisocial and self-destructive ways, he noted.
