Scott says that it's baseless to think that things were better in the 1860s or 1960s. I suspect most people would agree with him in the 1860s, but funnily enough, a lot of Republicans ahead of the 2016 election thought life had changed for the worst since the 1950s. In October 2016, Public Religion Research Institute found that 72 percent of Trump voters thought things had worsened while 70 percent of Clinton supporters thought things had improved.