Like causing people to lose trust in the "anti-inequality" message. If we need to lie or exaggerate to persuade then we may rightly lose credibility. Pro-inequality folks can even deflect the conversation to our own exaggeration. I didn't mean to imply that hyperbole is comparable to inequality in scale or severity, but rather that any gains afforded by hyperbole tend to be short-sighted.
I don't feel it was a lie or exaggeration. Many people do not feel like their life is worth living when they work a job they hate just to pay the bills, get no time to enjoy life, etc. It shouldn't be a surprise when the general trend is for highly industrialized countries to experience higher suicide rates.
Whether or not we are happy, the fact remains that the median American lifestyle is positively luxurious by world standards and “America is a third world country” rhetoric is hyperbole. Most everyone today or throughout history has had to work far harder than our median American to secure much less. That we are unhappy only indicates that wealth isn’t the major factor in happiness.
Personally, for causes of declining happiness, I would look at rampant social media and technology addiction, falling-sky media narratives, rapidly increasing political division (itself a product of the traditional and social media), decreasing religious participation, weaker family/community ties, and good ole fashioned keeping up with the Jones’s.
