We're going wrong

 Andrew Gelman had a post on "the last time that it seemed that the United States was coming apart, in the late 1960s."  He says that there was there was "the same feeling of things spinning out of control and the idea that conventional politics was failing."  I was going to leave a comment, but it expanded into this post: 

The most important difference is that in the late 1960s there was a lot more confidence in political and institutional leaders.  The Gallup poll sometimes asks people to rate public figures on a scale of +5 to -5.  In October 1968, 79% gave Richard Nixon a positive rating, with 23% giving him a +5, and only 6% giving a -5.   Hubert Humphrey got 72% positive, with 16% giving a +5 and 8 a -5.   In October 2024, 51% gave Donald Trump a positive rating, with 21% at +5 and 35% at -5.  Kamala Harris got 48% positive, with 16% at +5 and 29% at -5.   That is, in 1968 many people thought that both candidates were pretty good, and few people thought that the one they were voting against was terrible; now it's the reverse.  We also have data for confidence in "the people running" various institutions, from the Harris Poll in 1967 and the General Social Survey in 2024.  In 2024, confidence was lower for 12 of the 13 institutions, and about the same for the remaining one (organized labor.

But I think that the sense that things were spinning out of control continued through the 1970s and early 1980s.  Although there were ups and downs, there was a constant background of economic problems ("stagflation"), rising crime and social disorder, and international setbacks.  Confidence in all thirteen institutions fell between 1967 and 1980, although the 1980 levels are higher than today's, with the exception of the military and organized labor.  As far as political leaders:

Both Carter and Reagan got low ratings compared to most previous candidates, but both were favorable on balance:  Carter had 68% positive and Reagan 64%, and both had more +5 than -5 ratings.  Independent candidate John Anderson also had over 60% positive.  

Turning to the general mood, I have to rely on impressions rather than data.  I was born in 1959 and wasn't paying attention to politics and public affairs in the late 1960s, but my sense that most people thought that the country had serious problems, but that its leaders could solve them.  By the late 1970s, there was a feeling that maybe our problems were too big for anyone to solve.  Now there's a feeling that the leaders aren't even trying to solve problems, but are causing them.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]