Opinion | We’re in the Age of American Pessimism

Donald Trump built his career on American carnage, on darkness. He didn’t invent it. He played on what was already out there. There’s a thing called Google Ngrams, which measures all the words in usage in the English language across newspapers, magazines and books. And you can go to databases stretching all the way back to the 1850s and discover what words were used. Most of the words used in the English language were positive words, words of positive emotion. We are an optimistic people, and that stretched through the Civil War. It stretched through the world wars; it stretched through the Great Depression. And now we are — negative words are used much more often than positive words. So we’re in the most pessimistic, darkest cultural atmosphere in American history, at least stretching back to 1850. I will say this level of disgust with the future, I think, is very alien to the American cultural DNA. And it’s important in history turns people reject the old — they get sick of the old show and they want a new show. So if you had run for president in 2020 or 2024 or 2016 on Reaganesque optimism, you would get crushed. But maybe by 2028, 2020, 2032, I would not be surprised if this cycle has turned.