Sorry, but the US has never been the "America that we once knew."
For examples, my grandparents grew up before automobiles, much less airplanes, but lived long enough to see men walking on the moon.
Thank God, they died long before men walked into women's restrooms, but that's a different matter.
Point is: the US has constantly changed, throughout our history, never the same, never "the America that we once knew".
Granted, not every change has been for the better.
Joe, when my wife’s uncle, a Korean War vet and Depression era kid , a real upbeat, hail fellow well-met kind of guy once said to me in a moment of candor about a year after Obama was in office “I’ve never seen anything as bad as this’’ I said to myself’’ Nobody’s flying the plane. We’re in trouble’’.