Encountering Anguish and Anxiety Across America [View All]

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more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2024065,00.html
By Joe Klein

On a blistering evening in Phoenix recently, a group of prominent civic leaders met to talk about America. It didn't take long for the conversation to get around to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. That's what happens when smart Americans get to talking about politics these days. Topic A is the growing sense that our best days as a nation are behind us, that our kids won't live as well as we did, that China is in the driver's seat.
(See more entries from Joe Klein's road trip.)

This is a popular, perhaps even dominant, theme in the U.S. this season — but it doesn't begin to describe the anguish that dominated every conversation about politics I witnessed during a four-week trip across the country.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2024065,00.html#ixzz11hmPzIuw