Why Am I Pessimistic For The Near Term?

Because little substantial is being done to address our major problems.

The government can barely run from debt ceiling to debt ceiling, and the large steps to come to grips with numerous problems are not being taken : everything is attenuated, watered-down, or filibustered.
Case in point, the Glass-Steagall Act will not be re-instated to ensure the health of the financial system. It won't be reinstated until after the next financial catastrophe.

At least we have been able to make a large overhaul of health-care (we'll see how it comes out, but it is better than the do-nothing approach), not bomb Syria, and come to a diplomatic agreement with Iran.
Those are enormous steps given our history.
They were and are not easy to do.

We run from the difficult, and filibuster a smoke-screen to give the illusion that we are doing something.
Nobody is deceived anymore.

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