I say overall and in general our country began a downhill slide with hippies in the 60s.
Once the hippies started making demands, spitting on soldiers, shit talking america, protesting in the names of other countries, wanting everything handed to them, wanting America to conform to them and so on was the tipping point.
They were fought against at first but once they became accepted then the bar for what's acceptable was lowered. Once a society lowers its bar you can't raise it again.
And the thing about lowering your bad is once you lower it for one group all youve done is lower the bar for the group that's below and essentially made it easier for them to try and grab. Once they grab it now it's the group below them that's closer and it's keep on going down.