"How did things go so badly wrong so quickly?

By going wrong, I refer to something fundamental: the loss of a conception of the common good to which most citizens, consciously or instinctively, subscribe. In the America in which I grew up, an identifiable cultural and moral consensus prevailed. Today, that consensus has disappeared, leaving in its place a void. The “mystic chords of memory” to which Lincoln referred have been stretched past the breaking point.
....
The stores of capital accrued by the exertions of the Greatest Generation have now been depleted. Mom and Dad aren’t around to bail boomers out of the fix they’ve gotten the nation into.

What precisely defines that fix? Not small stuff. Allow me to offer the following examples of propositions that my parents could take for granted but have now vanished, seemingly for good:
Then, citizenship entailed obligations: no more. Patriotism has been all but emptied of content. “Ask what you can do for your country”? Surely, you jest.
Then, the economy centered on production. Today, it promotes and celebrates unfettered consumption. As a moral proposition, pay-as-you-go retains about as much authority as prohibitions on pre-marital sex. These days, Americans do profligacy; frugality is for lesser beings.
Then, a “vital center” provided ballast to national politics. Today, that moderating center has succumbed to exhaustion. A “woke” left and a combative right vie for power. Neither camp admits of any obligation to compromise. Both claim a monopoly on righteousness..
Then, in the realm of foreign policy, a modicum of prudence curbed the worst instincts of American statesmen. Today, arrogance, bellicosity, and a stubborn unwillingness to measure the wreckage caused by neo-imperialist fantasies are hallmarks of U.S. statecraft.
Then, power-wielding elites respected religious norms—or, at least made a pretense of doing so. Today, transcendence is for rubes, with unabashedly secularized “thought leaders” touting novelty, convenience, and glitter as substitutes for faith.

The problem facing the United States today is not simply that Americans have at hand no antidote to these ills. The real problem is that (with a handful of exceptions) few are even willing to acknowledge the depth of the crisis in which we find ourselves. We are a nation in denial.

The unwritten rule for essays of this type is for the author to conclude on an encouraging note, offering a three (or four, or five) step solution to the problems cited. In point of fact, there is no solution anywhere in sight. As the calendar turns to a new year, we Americans are in for a long, hard winter."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/facing-a-long-hard-winter/