In an era when we came within seconds of species-wide annihilation on multiple occasions, Reagan glibly joked about it in public, knowing that he and the other elites would be whisked away to well-equipped bomb shelters. He was frequently disoriented and confused in public, and there was frequent speculation about dementia (he'd be officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's only six years after leaving office). People constantly "joked" about him getting confused and accidentally launching nukes.
First Lady Nancy Reagan invited an astrologer into the White House to advise them. The national debt tripled. The societal outrage and backlash was identical to now, if not worse. Reagan was just as unpopular as Trump at the same point of his presidency. Only now imagine if Trump won reelection despite all that and became so overwhelmingly popular that his VP took over after he was done, effectively extending his reign to 2028.
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The Overall Cultural Anxiety Was Indescribable
This isn't a contest. I'm not saying your fears about the future aren't valid. (The last time we saw suicide rates this high was, yep, 1986.) I'm saying that the only reason today seems worse is that you have knowledge that eighties America didn't have: You know how things turned out for us.
In 1984, it was actually seen as almost certain that if humanity survived to see the 21st century at all, we'd be competing with rats for food. We waited for the nukes to come, waited for the Soviets to take over the Earth, for the Japanese to collapse our economy, for the cities to descend into crime and chaos. I swear that every movie, show, or song was either worshiping the cocaine-and-Jacuzzi lifestyle or warning about the end times, like we were all having one final party until the real world looked like Escape From New York, The Day After, or the Mad Max movies.