I think it's obvious Americans have always been shitty. It's a country founded by religious nuts based on slavery and subjugation of women and minorities. The average American has always been a fucking moron. The leaders have always been corrupt.
The Internet and social media has just exposed it to a great extent and magnified the core values of greed, selfishness, and materialism to an uncontrollably bastardized level that isn't sustainable anymore. The capitalism has become uncontrolled, the corruption has reached dangerous levels, and the very things that led to advanced technological development are now destroying the foundation of the country.
Which positions the country extremely poorly to navigate the climate change challenges that are exacerbated more and more each year. Ironically, the brainwashing of American exceptionalism and greatness that led to your erroneous post also prevents the population at large from proper self evaluation to even realize the changes that need to occur to have a puncher's chance of curbing the decline and mitigating the coming disasters.