I went to the dentist today to get a filling replaced - and walked out with a root canal.

But more troubling than the extended and painful dental procedure - was what the dentist told me before he went to work.

We got to talking about the Post Office's financial problems - and I told him my theory about how Republicans want to privatize the post office and replace a little over half a million unionized workers with a little over half a million Taco Bell-wage employees.

And that’s when he said words to the effect of - “Well - at least Detroit understands what’s going on - they have new hires coming into the auto plants there making 13 bucks an hour - no reason to pay someone 30 bucks an hour to put screws on a tire.”

I immediately wanted to say to him that the reason why auto workers in Detroit used to make 30 bucks an hour was so they could become part of the middle class - raise a family - have a home and car - take vacations - and put their kids through college.

Back then - our government believed that a strong middle class was good for the country - and wanted as many people in that middle class as possible - people who could spend money - people who could afford a good education - who could invent and innovate.

You know, that "happiness" thing that Thomas Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence.

My dentist was a young guy - probably in his thirties - and doesn't remember what America was like before Reagan - when taxes on the rich were above 70% - when two out of three workers had a union job or its financial equivalent - and when our social safety net caught people when they fell.

Back then you didn’t need a college degree to pursue the American Dream - if you worked hard and you kept your nose clean - you could get by with just a high school diploma.

But now - thanks to 30 years of Reaganomics corroding the American Dream - instead of new auto workers in Detroit getting a shot at the middle class - they’re destined to join the ranks of the rapidly expanding poor - the working poor - here in America.

According to a new report from Pew - one in three people who grew up in the middle class in the 1970's have now dropped out of the middle class today and are part of the working poor.

They just couldn't cut it anymore in the new America - where billionaires and their bought-off politicians have raised the bar for entry into the middle class higher and higher - until eventually very few people can actually climb over it.

And more and more people have just accepted that as the new normal - rather than pushing back against this downsizing of the American Dream - and asking why are we kicking more people OUT of the middle class instead of bringing more people INTO it?

That’s what I wanted to tell my dentist - but since he was about to stick a drill in my mouth - I decided - stuff it.

But it's the same story I hear from young conservatives who I have on my show all the time - they, also, don't remember what it was like before Reagan.

But since they have their college degrees - they think they're going to be just fine chasing the new American Dream - and to hell with those who didn't go to college - they don't deserve the good life anymore.

But what these young, college-educated conservatives don't realize is... is they're in the cross hairs next.

This year - for the first time ever - student loan debt outweighed credit card debt. A trillion dollars.

The average student leaves college already $24,000 in the hole - and job prospects are getting dimmer and dimmer as today's unemployment rate among 18 to 24-year-olds is over 16%.

So at this rate - even a college degree doesn't guarantee entry into the middle class anymore in America.

Welcome to the college graduate working poor class - another sad group of Americans who thirty years ago would have enjoyed the perks of living in the middle class - but in today's new American Dream are stuck in low-paying dead-end jobs.

What working people around the nation are facing now - is a whole new generation coming to power today - people like Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor - people like my dentist - people who never knew what the American Dream used to stand for.

And instead they've bought into the vision of America promoted by billionaires and oligarchs - one of a wealthy ruling elite looking down on a vast underclass of working poor - and a sliver of something that used to look like the middle class.

It's not about failed supply-side economics anymore - it's about a great forgetting, to use Daniel Quinn's term, and a re-education of this nation.

"Just getting by" is now the new normal.

And if we don't remember soon what the American Dream used to stand for - and just how important the middle class was in making America the economic superpower that it was for most of the 20th century - then America will quickly come to resemble Mexico.

Let's stop forgetting - and start remembering.

That's The Big Picture.