Because a couple of the main things you mentioned about the 80s being scary didn't end up happening, which takes away from the memory of how scary it was at the time. I'm specifically thinking about the Cold War, and the fact that during the early-mid 80s it felt like nuclear war with the Soviet Union was just a matter of time.

But in general there has been enough distance from the 80s that we have "survived" what was considered scary then, but the things going on right now in the present don't have that "survivor comfort". We don't know if the Israel/Palestine war, along with Ukraine/Russia and possibly China/Taiwan(ROC) will eventually turn into World War 3. We don't know if the current state of US politics being so divided (same with many other countries) will lead to huge scary shifts in our future reality or if there will be a correction in this soon. We don't know if the current climate change crisis will escalate to disasters within the next couple years (well, we've already been seeing this but we don't know what else is coming).

In general, current fear of the unknown is tough to compare to past fear of the unknown which IS now known.