When I was a boy, we drank the milk from our cows, unpasteurized, unhomogenized. When the cows grazed chives, you tasted them in the milk. Onion-flavored milk is gag-worthy, trust me.

So with news consumption. The more calamities reporters report, the more calamitous the world seems. The more news we digest, the gloomier we get. This helps explain the conundrum that our mood corrodes while our conditions improve. The stats suggest the majority have never had things so good, yet we’re down in the dumps. That’s because we don’t react to facts but to our perception of them. Heaven and Hell are states of mind, not places on a map.

Paradoxically, a free press is undermining the democracy that made it possible. During my life the quantity of news multiplied exponentially. When I was a boy the newspaper came daily – with the milk. Nightly newscasts began when I was in grade school, though not until JFK was shot were we allowed to watch. Then came cable, with its nonstop news channels, the Internet with its tireless blab, the foxy folks at Fox lying to ratchet ratings, my smart phone alarming me every few minutes, and suddenly the average joe was drowning in urgent bulletins.

None of the news was good. That’s not because newspeople are ghouls, it’s because good news is a snooze. Often, in my decades as a community newspaper editor, I was asked why we didn’t report all the good things going on in town. Because I wanted to eat, was my reply. What’s amiss interests. Tell me all’s hunky-dory and my attention moseys elsewhere, where it might do some good.

The more news, the more bad news, the grimmer our outlook. Open any of my half-dozen up-to-the-minute news conduits and the world is going to hell and then some. Politicians pick up the refrain. According to one of our major political parties, America is a shithole, on the verge of collapse; only they can make America “great” again. But that’s not true, fact aficionados protest, not remotely! So what, it is so if we think so.

The way to repair our mood, then, is to gag the news? That’s what totalitarians do. I don’t read Russian but I’ll bet you their press isn’t harping on what’s wrong with Putin. The regime is dandy, its enemies are evil, no worries, you’re safe and sound – that’s a tyrant’s PR.

The complexity of modernity may make democracy unworkable. Democracy is predicated on a commonsensical citizenry. If half of America insists blatant hogwash is God’s truth, we’ve got a problem: we the people may be too duped and dopey to govern ourselves.

I see no easy fixes to our predicament. Punishing malicious liars severely enough to dissuade them would be a start. Maybe license voters as we license drivers: if you don’t know anything about America, you can’t steer us. Make every vote count, so the majority don’t feel impotent. (Why should Ohio and Nevada select our President?) Enforce public probity so we trust our worthies. (No more luxury junkets or rabid flags for Supreme Court justices, sorry.) Such drastic changes are as unfeasible as they are unpalatable. Likelier we’ll keep floating the ship of state toward the cataract – then go smash.

Addicted to the news, I loathe my addiction and the dark mood it stokes. Focus me on words, beauty, Henry, love, our human genius, and I’m a happy guy. The ostrich option tempts: what me worry!

Only, we don’t choose our moment. Conscience can’t abrogate its responsibility to make the most of now. America may not be salvageable – but we’ve got to try.