American Doom Loop

Much of the contemporary crazy can be traced to the 1980s—America of the 2020s is living with the cultural shapeshifting rooted in that decade. Americans lived in a different reality in 1980: Vermont was the only state that let residents carry a concealed firearm without a permit. Twenty-four states now allow this—and numerous other gun laws have fallen by the wayside. When police were accused of wrongdoing, the default answer from society’s arbiters—courts, politicians, newspaper editors—was: “