I thought about this recently. Ideas is what in theory kept American society going. For a while, as the society started to lose track of what it wants to be ( and people in charge not exactly keen on educated populace ), it was the idea of American destiny and uniqueness and freedom and so on.

Shared TV space replaced those 'shared values' state tried to indoctrinate people with 'shared current thing', which had to indoctrinate people to state propaganda AND sell stuff for companies.

Those shared values have to replaced with something.

I want to say something pithy like 'but now its memes or tiktok shorts', but I can't get sufficiently worked up.