Is everything falling apart?
Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart.<p>In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions.  Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to public sentiment.  People who I would consider "normies" even don't trust law enforcement and the FBI anymore (not that they ever should have).  Even the education system from K12 to college is increasingly being seen as a joke and an outright racket.  We also went from the President being a more respected position to one deserving of relentless tabloid gossip.  Even if one's "guy" is in office, I don't think we feel the same about it the way we did even as recent as Obama, and his administration was when we really began to see the social cracks forming.<p>Civilization ebbs and flows, but I think the current sentiment is unprecedented in my lifetime.  This is not a high point by any stretch of the imagination, and while I see "everything is collapsing" to be hyperbolic, it seems inevitable that many things we thought were rock solid are in a transition period where either they will reform or one day be replaced with force of some kind.