This is the real elephant in the room. With the end of the Cold War, pretty much all systemic critiques of the American Way of Life were swept away, and any request of change was shut down for ever. America (as depicted in Hollywood movies in 1985) was crowned "best society ever" and social mores were frozen in place. As globalisation started to hit harder and harder, generating a timid backlash in Seattle etc, 9/11 happened... and again any critical point of view was banished. Even "western" foreign policy is basically still the same. No wonder Reagan was all but beatified when he died.