  You thought my Dick Cheney impersonation was pessimistic? The Vice President is the Platonic Form of optimism, Honey, especially when he snarls. But let me get to your questions,--How optimistic do I feel about the future of my country? Well, I don't think we're in danger of being overrun by Talibanesque evangelicals any time soon. There are simply too many of us, too many libertarians, and too many middle-of-the-roaders. Furthermore, the retrograde swing of the evangelicals will be matched in turn by a greater forward swing by liberals. We cycle in and out of conservatism and liberalism as an overarching human theme through all the time. Periods of intellectual light are followed by periods of darkness followed by greater light followed by lesser darkness. The depth of the conservative evangelical ignorance is not nearly as bad today as it was say during the industrial revolution or the time of the crusades. The Bush-Cheney take on manifest destiny, albeit too imperialist for my taste, is not nearly as bad as Teddy Roosevelt's and the Rough Riders and he was progressive.
The average conservative in 2004 would look like some wild-eyed raving liberal in most political debates at the turn of the last century. The progressives of that day were busy trying to stave off prohibition, eliminate boss-style government corruption, and create basic healthy working conditions for women not fighting for gay rights and universal health care. The general trend is toward liberalism, toward human rights and justice--but it's not a straight line, it's a curvey line, a sine wave, where over the short term (that of a mere human life) the curve may move down (ignorant conservatism) or it may move up (intellectual liberalism).
Over the generations it is moving in the direction of enlightened knowledge and a growing self-awareness as a humanity. Are we in the midst of a short-run downturn? So it seems. But that is to be expected coming off the rebellious Sixties and self-indulgent Seventies. So take heart my thoughtful, kindhearted friend, it won't last long. Ultimately people see through the hate-filled garbage as we move inexorably forward to truth. 
