The crisis we see in suburban America is similar to the decline of the working class. The modernist rationality of the suburbs is losing hegemonic gravity d/t further neoliberal erosion of community, institutions, and uncertainty= new politics of rage, despair, denial, & apathy.
Anyone who has lost their formerly liberal Boomer parents to the right wing extremist senses this subtle crisis. Gen X, as the lost generation of the neoliberal age, bore witness to the epistemic displacement of the American Dream and it's fading allure.
The suburbs moved from the surety of white supremacists suburban culture into a postmodern, post-truth outpost that is now merely a panoptic facade striving to unconsciously restore the erroneous zenith of western ideals: Placid houses of "values," entitlement, and consumerism.
From grocery advertisements to daytime television commercials for Mop & Glo-- the avatar of the "Standard North American Family" is in decline and must be replaced. Yet, suburban cosmopolitan discourse seems entirely unable to suffice. What will replace this edifice is unknown.
But White Suburban Americans, seem deeply and even unconsciously anxious, as well as woefully unprepared, for the neccessary culture shifts needed for progress in our country.
Perhaps understanding how this displacement has arisen, the sociopolitical and discursive forces which have decentered suburban culture as well as the forces that have materially hollowed out the middle class, would be of some use to society as we move forward.
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