Americans may see or hear about the closing stores, rising debt, Obamacare, food stamps, regulations, offshoring, homosexuality, endless US wars, increasing taxes, illegal immigrants, nanny state laws, security cameras, license plate readers, checkpoints, redlight cameras, speed cameras, FBI facial and voice recognition, curfews, gun bans, NSA wiretapping, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, searches without warrants, private prisons, mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, DNA databases, CISPA, SOPA, NDAA, IMBRA, private prison quotas, no knock raids, take down notices, no fly lists, terror watch lists, Constitution free zones, stop and frisk, 3 strikes laws, kill switches, National Security Letters, DNA databases, kill lists, FBAR, FATCA, Operation Chokepoint, TSA groping, civil forfeiture, CIA torture, NDAA indefinite detention, secret FISA courts, FEMA camps, laws requiring passports for domestic travel, IRS laws denying passports for tax debts, gun and ammo stockpiles, laws outlawing protesting, police militarization, and Jade Helm, but they're not connecting the dots that all these seemingly unrelated issues are part of the plot to destroy the USA.
Americans are so brainwashed, divided, distracted, degraded, and demoralized now that they might even think these trends are necessary and proof that the US is improving.