Was 2021 the Worst Year in US History?

A Non-hyperbolic Analysis

Many people are claiming that 2021 was the worst year in American History. Let's analyze whether this is true or not.

On two issues I might decree 2021 to be the worst year of all. First, the piss-poor reaction to COVID by our so-called leaders has been an unmitigated failure on every level- COVID has already eclipsed the Spanish Flu in the sense of disrupting life, mainly because of the knee-jerk hyperbolic demands of a feckless and paranoid public and feedback from thence through and from the hypocritical ruling class. Second, the fact that the current so-called US president is a demented and elderly fool who is partially controlled by the Chinese communist party and is led around like a dog on a leash by his handlers in a manner reminiscent of Wilson after having a stroke a century ago. On the topic of COVID, only the AIDS crisis could potentially be argued to be as significant in terms of the denigration of the stability of society. I'd argue that it was more destabilizing if only on the basis of its longevity- but other than the crisis itself, the 1980s and 90s were a time of relative stability (cold war hyperbole aside.)

When we're ranking the years, though, it doesn't make sense to point to individual things- it only makes sense to look at each and every significant issue, perhaps arbitrarily scoring them, and then deriving your conclusion based on that totality.

For example; 2021 was a bad year in basically every measure. But was the economy worse than any of the years encompassing the great depression? It was bad for overall domestic policy, but does it approach the civil war era or the era of the War of 1812? Government corruption was rife, but did it approach the gilded age with its union busting, printing press-burning, bomb-throwing anarchists, and plutocrat excess?

We suffered major race riots and vast social alienation. Were they as pronounced as the riots and alienation of the civil rights era at its peak?

We suffered several major foreign policy disasters (Afghanistan being the most obvious example) but did we get involved in a new war? Did we suffer multiple disasters in a short period as we did towards the end of the Vietnam War?

The United States suffered shortages- significant ones- but were they as bad as the shortages of the late 1970s, let alone the rationing of the Second World War? Speaking of the 1970s, while gas prices have skyrocketed, did they rise quite as much relative to individual income as they did under Jimmy Carter?

What matters, then, is the much more broad view, in which we could decree 2021 to have been a jack-of-all-trades year in which most issues which could be problematic were present, at large levels, with one or two said issues probably being worst or near to it.

Therefore I think it is safe to say that the 2021 was easily the worst year in US history since at least the 1970s. On some metrics, it was probably worse. Most people alive today have never suffered under such an abysmal overall condition, but whether or not conditions are as bad as they were at several points in the (relatively distant) past is definitely debatable and subject to recency bias.