"A Kind of Cult of the Middle American"

"Maybe this will become more obvious as we commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of various events of the 1960s and as we remember the social and political conditions that gave rise to the counterculture in the first place: A mass middle class whose lockstep consumption drove the economic growth of the nation; a rigidly hierarchical white-collar workplace that offered security in exchange for conformity.
"None of this exists any longer.  The mass middle class is disappearing fast and the old corporate model has been dead for decades.  Defying either one is objectively pointless, like rebelling against the gold standard or barbershop quartets.
"The urgent need of our age is not individual self-actualization or even a really innovative artisanal cocktail; it is to hold on to that middle-class society the counterculture thought was so soulless and unfulfilling.  All the signifiers have changed.  Today corporate managers routinely declare themselves to be disruptive and revolutionary fellows, while average, uncool workers fight desperately to hang on to their pensions and healthcare benefits."


Thomas Frank in Salon discusses "Republican normcore."