J.D. Tuccille: Most Americans think the best is behind them

An American flag flies from a tour boat off the shore of the Port of Long Beach on May 8, 2026 near Long Beach, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

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It’s a major anniversary year for the U.S., which marks 250 years as an independent nation. But many Americans aren’t in the mood to celebrate. Most think the quarter-millennium of existence enjoyed by the country was the best time we’re likely to see, and that the future is bound to be grim. 

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In recent polling, reports Pew Research’s Blen Wondimu, “59% of Americans say the country’s best years are behind us, while 40% say its best years are ahead.” Forty-four per cent report feeling very or somewhat pessimistic about what the U.S. will be like in 50 years, as opposed to 28 per cent who feel optimistic and 27 per cent who just aren’t sure. 

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As with everything that divides Americans, these days, responses break along the lines of political partisanship. Out of power, 64 per cent of Democrats and survey respondents who lean toward that party say the country’s best years are in the past; only 34 per cent say they lie ahead. But even dominant Republicans can only summon mixed sentiments; 53 per cent say the country’s best years are behind us, while 46 per cent say they’re in the future. 

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That’s an awful lot of wet-blanketry for the citizens of a republic that has survived through 25 decades and drawn on one governing constitution throughout that period. The U.S. system of government has proven remarkably stable when compared to peer liberal democracies in continental Europe. But Americans in 2026 aren’t unique in their taste for doomcasting. 

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In 2018, policy analyst Marian Tupy and co-author Paul Meany noted for the Foundation for Economic Education that, by contrast to modern belief in progress, in classical times, “the Greeks believed that there was no way to escape from gloom.” They added, “(f)or the Roman historians, the contemporary period formed a part of an eternal spiral of moral decline that contrasted starkly with the glorious age of their virtuous ancestors.” Modern Americans may be channeling their classical-era forebears. 

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Of course, there are reasons to be concerned about the state of the nation. For those with a taste for 20th century science fiction, we seem to be living through what author Robert Heinlein described in his imagined future history as the “Crazy Years.” In his fictional timeline, America went through a period of growing chaos during which the population embraced extreme movements, abandoned rationality, and people turned against each other. The result was a degeneration into dictatorship. 

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That sounds more than a little ominous when Americans across the political spectrum accuse each other, with considerable justification, of embracing authoritarianism and of trying to suppress dissent. We are, too, increasingly at each other’s throats. 

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On the left, presumed Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner was exposed as sporting a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo while also describing himself as a “communist” and promoting political violence. Given the details, the specifics of his ideology are a bit elusive, though they are certainly totalitarian and repulsive. Platner currently leads in polling against incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins.