Think back over the major headlines you've read over the last few weeks.

Police shootings, in Canada and the U.S., violent attacks, political turmoil...we could keep going, but you get it.

It feels like the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Roy Peter Clark teaches writing at the Poynter Institute. He argues that's there never was a golden age, and is critical of writers and politicians who pretend one existed.

Take election coverage of Donald Trump for example and his slogan "Make America Great Again."

Clarks says it relies on what he calls the Myth of the Golden Age - and in this audio essay, he investigates if or when that Golden Age ever existed.

Was America great in the 1820s when slaves were property and women had no vote? How about the 1860s when over half a million Americans killed each other in the Civil War? The Great Depression! Those were the days! - Roy Peter Clark

Click on the play button above to hear Roy Peter Clark's audio essay.