This theory has held up poorly to other theories, such as the federal legalization of abortion. Positing a single cause, even a single dominating cause, is an incredibly, incredibly hard claim to demonstrate. I do believe that unleading gasoline had widespread social impacts, but this narrative is just lazy reduction with no benefit.

Personally, I think the easiest theory is simply economic prosperity. Most American problems these days can be described in terms of relationship to wealth. changes in education take decades to reflect in aggregate effectiveness. If nothing changes, I think we'll be facing a similarly-violent time period for likely the rest of our lives, even if we aren't there yet.