Spend enough time doomscrolling social media and you’ll come across images and videos highlighting the worst and least representative behavior of American life today.
From graphic videos of violence to yet another headline about gang violence in American cities, one gets the impression of a dangerous country in decline. Throw in the hysteria of modern political discourse and the very real instances of political violence, and you’re left with the impression of an America that is not only unusually dangerous but potentially on the brink of civil war and collapse.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans are self-confessed doomscrollers, with 55% identifying politics and 23% identifying crime as triggers for further “spirals.”
But just as scenes of Skid Row don’t actually represent all of Los Angeles, horrific acts like the assassinations of Charlie Kirk or Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman don’t represent the totality of American politics. Both reality and the ways forward are more complicated and ultimately less bleak than the algorithms and online discourse may lead you to believe.
One way to illuminate this is by comparing America today to America half a century ago. As we recently marked 250 years of the American experiment, life in America is in many ways safer than it was at the bicentennial, but also more fragile.
America at 200 was clearly more dangerous
Think back to the America of the 1970s. Yes, thanks to the passage of time, one’s mind might go straight to disco, “Star Wars,” and bellbottoms. But with deeper reflection, one might also remember the end of the Vietnam War and all that entailed, President Richard Nixon’s resignation and maybe the stagflation of the Carter years. It was a rocky decade in many ways.
It was also a decade with levels of crime few could comprehend today.
The decade began with crime rates of 363.5 per 100,000 in 1970. As America marked the bicentennial in 1976, the violent crime rate hit 467.8 per 100,000. Though people didn’t fully realize it at the time, it was the early stages of a violent crime trend that would continue sharply upward until reaching a peak in 1991 of 758.1 per 100,000.
Property crime followed a similar trajectory, rising from 3,621 per 100,000 in 1970 to 4,819.5 in 1976, before reaching a peak of 5,353 per 100,000 in 1980 and another of 5,139.7 per 100,000 in 1991.
Now compare those numbers with today.
In August 2026, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its annual crime report, which found there were “327.6 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants” reported in 2025, the lowest number seen since 1968. Property crime rates were reported at 1,534.8 property crimes per 100,000, less than one-third of its 1976 level. The latest FBI data shows that America’s murder rate has fallen to historic lows, around where we were in the mid-1950s.
Of course, behind all of these numbers are real people being victimized, and it’s cold comfort to the victims of today that fewer people are victimized than in the past. But it’s also the case that, indeed, the America of today is dramatically safer than it’s been in a long time and it’s been getting safer for decades now. There are far fewer people today being murdered, assaulted, robbed or stolen from than in decades past.
It’s also true that these top-line figures understate the challenges specific jurisdictions or neighborhoods face with certain quality-of-life crimes like public drug use or persistent misbehavior on public transportation systems. That doesn’t discount the nationwide trend but rather speaks to the need for ongoing pressure on specific jurisdictions to act in response to specific problems.
But what about political violence?
The American experiment is one that depends on the peaceful resolution of disagreements mediated through debate, discussion and the ballot box. Political violence is necessarily antithetical to the American experiment, and whenever it occurs, it is a blow to a system built on norms and laws that encourage the spirited but nonviolent resolution of disputes.
Again, think back to America 50 years ago. Still fresh in American memory were the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, among others.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts within a 17-day period. San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone would be gunned down in 1978, the same year that California Rep. Leo Ryan would be killed while investigating the Peoples Temple cult in Guyana.
By some measures, the 1970s were also a high point for terrorism in the United States. Groups like the Weather Underground conducted several high-profile bombings throughout the decade, including in the U.S. Capitol Building, the Pentagon and the State Department. Puerto Rican nationalist groups, the Black Liberation Army and the Symbionese Liberation Army likewise conducted armed robberies, plane hijackings and bombings across the country.
Fast forward to today and there are indeed troubling echoes of the 1970s.
Recent years have seen large-scale political violence. From the 2020 unrest across the country to the storming of the U.S. Capitol in 2021, there are troubling echoes of past decades.
In addition to the assassinations of Kirk and Hortman, President Donald Trump has faced multiple assassination attempts. Supreme Court justices and members of Congress have faced threats, assassination plots and “swatting” attempts. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family had their home broken into and set ablaze.
Public polling also indicates the vast majority of Americans (85%) perceive increased political violence, but partisans of the two dominant political parties respectively blame the other side for the problem. Meanwhile, researchers from UC Davis find that as many as 9.3% of “Strong Democrats” believe a civil war is on the horizon while as many as 4.7% of “MAGA Republicans” strongly believe a civil war is needed “to set things right.”
Reasons not to despair
Needless to say, this isn’t the greatest spot for America to be in. But it’s important to keep a few things in mind.
While Americans understandably worry about the threat of it, actual political violence remains rare in America. “The amount of actual political violence that has occurred is nowhere near what it was in the 1960s,” Lilliana Mason of Johns Hopkins University told the Economist last year. “A lot of these are people who probably would have committed violence in some way. It’s just that our politics has kind of aimed them towards political targets.”
For every troubling statistic about the number of Americans who think political violence is OK, they’re outnumbered by the vast majority of people. Polling conducted in September 2025 by YouGov found that just 11% think violence for political goals can sometimes be justified, while 72% said it was never justified.
And finally, America didn’t make it to 250 without adversity. The country has withstood far worse than the current moment or even the tumult of the 1960s and 1970s: a literal Civil War that killed hundreds of thousands of people, two world wars, domestic and international terrorist threats, assassinations and several other periods of upheaval.
The idea that a country as wealthy, institutionally robust and historically resilient as the United States can’t figure its way out of another period of political turmoil seems unnecessarily pessimistic.
Handle with care
While the stories and videos of crime and disorder are more in-your-face than they’ve ever been, thanks in large part to the smartphones in all of our pockets and algorithms therein, don’t confuse visibility with prevalence.
There’s no denying that America, as a country of over 330 million people, has its share of crime, disorder and violence. But it must also be said that America at 250 has benefited from a decades-long, and ongoing, decline in crime.
America’s responses to crime must remain guided by evidence of what works and what doesn’t, by real data not anecdotes and fundamentally must be based in our founding commitments to due process and the rule of law. Ignore the hysterics on the one end yearning for public executions and those on the other end still clinging to unserious ideas like prison abolition.
There’s also no denying that America has seen troubling acts of political violence in recent years. But it must also be said that America has not — yet — returned to the intensity of political violence seen in the 1960s and 1970s.
Ensuring we don’t go down that road means remaining vigilant about the threat of political violence and the danger it poses not only to individuals impacted but the damage it does to the body politic.
At the individual level, Americans should view those with different points of view not as enemies but as people with different points of view. Ideas, and the mere expression of them, should not be equated with acts of violence (as many young people believe). Bad ideas should be fought with better ideas, not fists.
At the governmental level, it is likewise imperative for political violence to be handled neutrally, fairly and consistent with the rule of law. The actions of a few should not be used to justify sweeping crackdowns on speech or demonization of whole groups of people.
America has its problems, but it’s far from some doomed dystopian hellscape with no means of resolving its problems. It just takes some patience — and perspective.
Sal Rodriguez is opinion editor for the Southern California News Group and a senior fellow with the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of “Dynamism or Decay? Getting City Hall Out of the Way,” published by the Pacific Research Institute