But...
> Did life in America suddenly get that much worse during President Obama’s second term, as the economy was steadily improving?
Yes. Yes it did. The bank bailout was one of the worst things to come out of the oval office in my lifetime - a significant portion of the middle class just dried up and financial security for everyone but the wealthiest was all of a sudden a pipe dream. "The economy was steadily improving" is an incredibly ignorant and narrow take. The numbers for GDP looked good, but that doesn't account for distribution.
Social media in the form it has now is toxic. But it's not outlandish to think that a whole generation watching their parents lose homes and having what meager inheritance they might have relied on evaporate would be a little depressed about it.