This column’s title is borrowed from Edward Gibbons’s epic tome The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, written in 1776. I didn’t read it (it’s 3,500 pages), but his famous message is timeless and compelling — the hard reality that greatness never lasts forever, whether it’s the Roman Empire, the New York Yankees, the United Kingdom, and even our near-perfect USA.

Bit by bit, seemingly indestructible empires crumble, and only in retrospect does it become clear how and why that happened. We’re seeing it now, right here in the U.S., even if we’d prefer to look away.

Of course, it’s not all gloom and doom. Certainly, ours is a nation with much to celebrate — unrivaled prosperity, peace, liberty, and opportunity. But at the same time, the underlying fabric of our society — Americans’ legendary ability to live in harmony — seems to be coming apart at the seams. More and more, we’re becoming a nation of angry, resentful, and fearful inhabitants.

We now keep our doors locked, physically and emotionally.

The deterioration of civility in America has been gradual but cumulative — maybe that’s why we older Americans sense it so keenly. The indicators are too numerous to mention, but here are a few that come to mind:

Habitability of our great cities. Fifty-five years ago, my wife and I honeymooned in San Francisco. We were captivated by that magic city, staying in a tiny hotel a few blocks from Union Square, hopping on and off cable cars and exploring every neighborhood, day and night. We felt perfectly safe and enjoyed every minute.

That would be impossible today. Much of downtown San Francisco is now a hellscape of homeless encampments, drugs, violence, filth, and stench.

It’s not just San Francisco — cities across the country are becoming less habitable. We were once regular users of the vast New York City subway system, but no more; the all-too-frequent episodes of violence in those unprotected underground spaces now far outweigh the subway system’s convenience.

Public discourse. Our everyday language has become harsh, angry, and laced with profanity. The F-word, once the sole province of sailors, is now an all-purpose noun/adjective/adverb used casually in any company.

Identity politics. Although our nation has made enormous progress in erasing discrimination based on color, creed, or sexual orientation, our elected politicians still find value in reminding Americans of our differences and using those differences to arouse resentment and create political wedge issues. It’s poisonous.

Lifestyle. The time-honored (and well-proven) concept of the nuclear family is falling by the wayside. Marriage rates are down, divorces are up, and single-parent households abound. Meanwhile, mental health problems are a growing issue, clinical depression is more prevalent, and murders and suicides are at an all-time high. Simultaneously, there is resurgent public support for unrestricted abortion at any point in a pregnancy.

Is there some ambiguity here about the value of human life?

Accountability. A few weeks ago, when I tried to renew an in-demand new book that I’d borrowed from our Northern Virginia library, the librarian declined firmly, advising that seven-day books can only be loaned for seven days. “But,” she added helpfully, “we no longer impose fines, so why don’t you just keep it until you’ve finished reading it?”

That one made my head spin, with déjà vu memories of my mother hammering me to ALWAYS return library books on time.

Fast-forward to our 21st century best-and-brightest college graduates: having borrowed tens of thousands of dollars to cover their tuition cost, they happily vote for politicians who promise to “forgive” those intolerably burdensome loans. Do commitments today mean anything?

Partisan divide. Partisanship has metastasized, creeping into issues far and wide from the natural ideological differences between Left and Right. We now fight angrily about everything — national defense, pandemic response, environmental protection, even the biological differences between male and female. Whatever the Left likes, the Right hates — and vice versa — often with no basis at all.

OK, so what’s the point? Is this column just the grumbling of an old fogy pining for the good old days? Are they gone forever? Is there any chance of righting the ship?

Times change, of course, and we must change with them. But as citizens, we must never lose sight of what’s happening in our great country, and we cannot let politicians and their parties tell us what is and what is not acceptable.

In short, regardless of age, embrace your inner old fogy-ness, your traditional values, your rejection of the woke. Ignore media and ignore political party pronouncements — you know what’s right. Live that way. Vote that way.