Curious what makes you feel that way about the future?

Hopefully just "recency bias" and a weird, momentary, glitch in the development of our society! That is to say, hopefully I'm just over-reacting to something very short-term.

But to answer the question:

There are a lot of factors, and some are probably stronger signals, and some are weaker. So my sentiment right now is more about the summation of a lot of "things" that, taken collectively, seem to me to paint a dismal picture. I mean:

(this will be a very US centric list, BTW)

1. A flaming moron and wannabe authoritarian like Donald Trump being elected POTUS. And what appeared to be an associated, pronounced, increase in the overall level of hatred, jingoism, and bigotry during his term.[1]

2. That a senile, decrepit, useless POS like Joe Biden is the best we can do to replace Trump.

3. That Trump is (apparently) being taken seriously as a POTUS candidate again.

4. That Trump or Biden will very likely be the next POTUS.

5. The repeal of Roe vs. Wade

6. That on the Republican side, even though Trump may be the presumptive nominee, there does not seem to be a single member of the group of challengers who is worth a shit. Basically no high profile Republican is willing to be the "adult in the room" and both A. call out Trump for being the piece of shit he is, and B. behave like a reasonable, rational, educated, dignified adult.

7. Climate change, and the lack of progress we seem to be making in addressing it.

8. Economically, we seem pathologically incapable of rooting out corruption, regulatory capture, and cronyism. Creating the kind of Capitalism that should be just a straw-man caricature used by advocates of other ideologies. But no, we've actualized it into reality.

9. Globally, the overall rise in the appeal of authoritarian / dictatorial leaders.

10. Globally, an apparent rise in the appeal of nationalism and the associated behaviors: jingoism, hatred, bigotry, racism.

11. Decaying infrastructure: bridges collapsing, trains derailing, people being killed.

12. Our seeming inability to get a handle on excessive use of force by police.

13. Our inability to reign in "civil asset forfeiture"

14. The rise of nutty conspiracy theories and the cult like behavior of the followers of this crap (qanon, for example, but also this "15 minute city" stuff, etc)

15. Watching our technological progress all too often be used for deleterious ends, and fostering an increase in concentration of power. Facial recognition, gait analysis, etc. being used by governments to surveil their citizenry, etc.

16. Homelessness seems to be on the rise, at least locally in my area. Seems like every couple of weeks or so I see more and more people panhandling around the area, and see more tents popping up in the woods on the edge of highways.
I haven't looked up the stats nationwide, but I suspect this is a growing problem all over the US (and maybe in other places).

17. I'm sure I could go on, but what's the point. I imagine anybody reading this either gets the point or they don't (note that that's orthogonal to whether or not anyone agrees that all of these items are, in fact, reasons for despair).

[1]: Note - I'm not saying Trump is a racist or anything, or even that he intentionally inspired that kind of behavior in people. But I think the point that he somehow manages to bring out the worst in people is beyond question.