We really are! I hardly recognize my own country any more.

@Flyingsaucesir We’ve been here before. Most of us thought we had outgrown it. Others have been plotting, very successfully so far, on how to drag us back.

@Barnie2years Yeah, in the 1940s there was Father Charles Coughlin, Christian seditionist...

@Flyingsaucesir don’t forget Comstock, who’s laws I believe are still on the book.
What Are the Origins of the Comstock Act?
In 1873 – at the behest of anti-vice crusader, Anthony Comstock – Congress enacted a law banning the interstate mailing and receiving of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” writings, or “any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring an abortion.” In 1909, Congress enacted a similar law banning the use of express company or common carrier (such as FedEx or UPS) to mail “any drug, medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted, or intended for preventing conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use.” These laws came to be known collectively as the Comstock Act. The scope of what constituted obscene or lewd material was far broader at the time, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Comstock Act was used to prosecute a wide array of violations. These ranged from intent to mail magazines that detailed birth control methods, to the mailing of condoms and medical textbooks with illustrations of human anatomy, and even the mailing of letters discussing dating among unmarried people.

@Barnie2years It's like a recurring nightmare.

Science and science education has spurred positive progress, but it is halting, punctuated by spasms religious revanchism.

All things being equal, I would bet that good progress would continue. However, the future will not be like the past. Climate change is the wild card. Will we solve it before civilization collapses?