Well, there's more people now then ever. The environment is either at or past an irreversible tipping point. Every year being either the coldest, the hottest, the wettest, or the driest in recorded time. We have too much CO2 and not enough potable water. The ice caps are melting, the choral is bleaching, the sea is rising, and bugs are on the ropes. We've got fascism problems in basically every country simultaneously. Not to mention there is frank discussion about not whether or not there are aliens, but what about them should be declassified and discussed with the public. Our terrestrial telescopes can't see shit because of the sheer volume of satellites blanketing the night sky. And we've got cascading humanitarian crisis being captured in high definition and beamed to our 24 hour pocket sized global information machines, but all anyone seems to care about is what genitals you pledge allegiance to.

There may be precedents for these times, but they are the type of precedents that immediatly precede a global cataclysms. If anything your average person is not being dramatic enough.