Your falling into the “we’re doomed, things are out of control!” mindset. There is always scandals going on. The government has been corrupt forever (and to some extent, always will be). There will always be outrages to fill the news cycle. If there aren’t some obvious ones, the media will go find them. It is a big country and a big world, things that would infuriate you are happening all the time. The only difference now is we see almost every news event instantly - and we see stuff now we’d never have even known about before.
Crime rates in the US, for example, have been generally declining for 20 years, yet the average person tends to think violence and crime are worse than ever. The reason is because we see everything now - and we see it almost instantly.
Wait a minute! You’re just reciting a bunch of traditional conventional wisdom while we’re all staring at signs of unconventional times with increasingly unconventional frequency!!! (Remember what the dumass news reader once said: “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”)
“Trayvon incident, GSA gangsta parties, Secret Service meltdown, ‘outing’ of troops’ photos, government workers tapping into Unemployment Compensation while working, our President once ate a dog, etc, etc”
Chaos!? Heck - this is just business as usual. Now, when unemployment and social security RUN OUT - then you’ll see chaos.