SALENA ZITO: Nostalgia and the American dream aren’t airy fantasies.

Nostalgia is a complicated emotion. Initially it raises our endorphins as we flash back and momentarily relive simpler, happier times in our lives or our communities. But it also evokes a deep sense of loss because those times and experiences will likely never return.

We are completely powerless to change that, and we know it.

One of the complications for many professionals who live in larger cities and communities who have made the decision to embrace our current culture of dramatic and rapid change with gusto is their refusal to listen to the people who sometimes want the world to slow down.

Nostalgia to them often simply means racism. Nostalgia to many others, though, means seeking something that was lost.

The more cosmopolitan class, caught up, living and enjoying societal and political upheaval, too often view those who aren’t on board — or who are more nostalgic for a more personally connected society — as less intelligent, too tied to the tenets of their faith, backwards, or bigoted.

These cosmopolitan views are not new to the Trump era. They have been building for years and went largely unnoticed — until their class lost a presidential election in 2016.

Why this rejection? The list of reasons is long. My Washington Examiner editor Tim Carney, in his riveting and important new book “Alienated America,” explores those deeper reasons and unearths the true losses that lie inside that nostalgia.

What cosmopolitan critics got wrong about nostalgia since this populism began was the assumption that it was rooted in racism. They firmly believed then, as they do now, that “Make America Great Again” was code for something nefarious.

To be fair, they believe that everyone who votes against their agenda is motivated by racism. It’s essential to their self image. But it’s not working anymore.