I feel like those graphs and similar arguments are always trotted out, and they are an important piece, but there is more to the world than disposable income, and only using those stats completely ignores some very real negatives. You hint at it with "unless you really scope down to particular losers in a world of mostly winners", but I think you're vastly underestimating that:

1. Wealth inequality. Wealth inequality has exploded over the past few decades, and even if the median has gone up, the effects of widening wealth inequality can be very bad for society. First, as Charlie Munger once said, "The world is not driven by greed, but envy." Even if you're doing a little bit better, if everyone else is doing a ton better, this leads to you feeling like you're doing a lot worse. The rise of authoritarian politics in the West I think can be directly attributed by large swaths of society feeling left behind and like they are "getting screwed".

2. Related to the above, but finite resources, most especially land, are always vacuumed up by the wealthiest in society, regardless of any other level of incomes. So when there is a lot of wealth inequality, it can become prohibitively expensive to own land in any remotely desirable area, and this has huge negative societal effects (happy to go into this point more if you disagree).

3. The flip side of "optimized global supply chains" is incredibly brittle supply chains in the face of black swan events. Covid was a taste of this, though I think the global supply chain actually help up remarkably well for how enormous an impact Covid had. I think a better example would be something like chip production in Taiwan, which if it disappeared tomorrow would be absolutely devastating for the world economy.

4. Some countries that are now leaders in the world economy, like South Korea, had an extremely protectionist stance for decades in order to allow crucial industries to develop and not be undercut by cheap imports. I certainly don't think it's the only reason, but one reason Africa struggles so much is because they are flooded with cheap goods (or free goods in the guise of "charity") that prevent native industries from developing.

That first graph says the median income in 1974 was the equivalent of $5335 in today's dollars. I don't think it's adjusting for cost of living, because people lived a lot better in 1974 than you could live today on $5k per year.

But the political climate during that time period—starting on the left and now going to the right—has been that the middle class is being hollowed out. Is your argument that the Bush/Obama regime (recall that the Bush administration developed the bank bailout plan that Obama implemented) was basically correct? All the economy required was a little more regulation via Dodd Frank and the CFPB?

No fair bringing data. Share your feelings or move on.

A second in command of the US military, Jim Mattis, during Trump's first term said:

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort... I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

If you are ideologically in the group that he used the military against on American soil, or you are in the half of the divided country that he doesn't see as his supporters, then the concept is even less ridiculous sounding, cogent even. He's effectively taken a government that represents a whole country and turned it into a government that only represents half of the country. When you realize that all he supports are American oligarchs who are international in nature the comparison starts to get more and more and more cogent.

These are two of the complaints of America's founding fathers against King George III written in the declaration of independence.

  "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:"
  "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:"

The British government was the founding father's government.

As far a "acts of war" against their own citizens: Israel is Gaza's government and that blockade is so strong it is called an open air prison. Russia is fighting to be Ukraine's government. China is Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang's government.

In an authoritarian's government, it is not your government, it is only their government. Authoritarianism is in many ways a state of persistent war against people, which intuitively makes sense, because war is how you resolve disputes when negotiation doesn't work. War is the state of power alone resolving disputes, which is also what authoritarianism is.

While you are lecturing me on words meanings, I would advise you to look up the meaning of "de facto."

If you were America's founding fathers and King George 3, the leader of their government, decided to put a 10000% tariff on goods meant for the colonies, do you think they would have felt blockaded?