The USA was lost while we were working to pay our taxes.
It is gone forever so far as those alive today are concerned. Nobody living will see a USA like the one we have known before the 50s just like the nobody alive when the Israelites sinned a great sin would ever see the promised land.
And yet... and yet.
If we had the nicest country in the world but it was content with merely being nice, we might be a bust, eternally speaking.