Sept. 11, 2001 was the bump. July 2007, when the subprime crisis started to kick off was the set. July 2012 when Masterpiece Cake Shop was sued and August 9, 2014 when Brown was killed, were the spike. The political problems of today were set into motion by those events.

9/11 showed America was not invincible, led to massive increases in government intrusion, and, most importantly, the good will and unity 9/11 engendered was wasted on unsustainable foreign adventurism that broke the empire.

The subprime mortgage crisis destroyed the American economy and it never quite recovered, and permanently set back an entire generation economically. The good times that could paper over other problems were gone. So, the problems had to be dealt with.

Masterpiece Cakeshop and the first set of BLM riots (and other similar events, like suing the Little Sisters of the Poor) showed that there would be no mercy or magnanimity to whites and Christians to they lost power. Forcing them to fight. It's all downhill from those.

And of course, those are downhill from other decisions, that shaped the environment they occurred in, particularly Hart-Cellar 1965 and Roe v Wade and the crack epidemic and forced desegregation. But those were the events that shaped the problems we have now.

The major question facing America since the 90s it has been avoiding answering is, will whites and Christians become a minority in America and what is their place in America as minorities? Pre-2007 economy papered this over, but now it must be answered.

And that is why everything is shit, because this is an existential question. The wrong actions will lead to civil war, genocide, tyranny, and/or perpetual civil violence. And nobody who matters is even willing to state the question let alone honestly discuss the answer.