I don't know what America you think you grew up in, but the dynamics has not changed for the worse by YOUR standards. The Goldwater GOP supported ending social security, Medicare did not exist, the EPA and the CPA was a gleam in Nixon's eye, and Civil Rights legislation was being fought out in Congress. And if we are speaking of the 70s, well, that is a decade I'd rather forget (massive stagflation, oil embargo, communist cold war successes, the horrific misery index, skyrocketing crime rates, rationed gas lines, and great society programs crashing and burning in failure) - you don't miss that, do you?
As for your feelings, well, they are purely reactive without understanding. Emotions are not enough, they are the refuge of the intellectually stunted (willfully or not).
No, America is not the same - in part because folks like you got what they wished for.
There has always been and will always be two sides to the story and two ways to look at the same thing. That is people and they will always be the same. Nonetheless, in the past those opinions were based on some reality that was interpreted differently by each side but still a reality.
As I stated several times before, I never voted in my entire life until Trump showed up. Up until then, each nominee for office had some (if not all) of what I consider to be the basics of a human being. These are morals, ethics, principles and humanity. As long as the nominee, for whatever party, has at least one of these I figured that the United States would survive. Perhaps a worse or better period here and there but in the end survive because having one of those "basics" would guarantee that these people would not do something so drastically bad as to make the country go belly up.
and then Trump showed up. The man has no morals, ethics, principles or humanity...........NONE, and on top of that he lives in a fantasy world where one day the Pope could be a good person and the next day depending on what the Pope said he could be the devil. With Trump, there is no reality except what he thinks is reality. With him, even a nuclear war is possible. Killing hundreds of millions of people would not mean anything to him, it would just be a means to a desired end.
As such, and especially with so many supporters (such as you seem to be), his fantasies could become reality and his fantasies only include those he wants in his world, not those he detests and hates. The damage that such a man could cause not only to the U.S. but to the entire world is actually even more than what Hitler, Stalin and those kinds of people were able to do.
If you think for one second that these are just my personal opinions and emotions, you are wrong. A person that lies at the tune of about 7 times each day and actually believes many of his own lies is a danger to all because none of us have any control on what he believes since it is not reality. He could literally tomorrow think that the Democrats are going to kill him and all the Republicans and give the order to shoot all registered Democrats. Heck, he already in the past asked why he couldn't use nuclear weapons to resolve problems. A person like that has no handle on what is real and that means that none of us have a handle on it either.
The Checks and Balances that are supposed to protect us against such a person have been worked on by Trump to be eroded to where they don't work any more. The Justice Department is now under his control, the House and the Senate were under his control and those that did not agree with him he tried to get rid of them, even if they were in his own party. The Federal and Supreme Courts are now under his control. Tell me how the Checks and Balances can work if he has all 3 of the Checks and Balances sowed up in his favor?
I am sorry, but your long-winded attack on my person does not solve the problem. I could literally disappear but the problems would remain. I am just a voice trying to talk about the problem which is not the Republican or Democratic party but a mad man (Trump) that lives in a fantasy world that none of us can control.