And I'm not demeaning anyone. I'm demeaning an absurd idea. Myths are simply past religions. At some point, the masses won't require them.
If you think the masses don't require myths, you have a higher opinion of humanity than I do. But the way I have heard you deride the masses, I actually don't think you have a very high opinion of them, so I'll dig in.
People, especially "the masses", often don't have the time or inclination to think for themselves. They have agency to decide plenty of things in their life. Whether/where to go to college. What job they want to do. Who they want to marry. But when it comes to the BIG questions, very few people in this world are truly philosophical and can handle the idea that "it's all made up bullshit and I have to face a world that is almost entirely myth-based."
So they NEED myths. They CRAVE it. The myths underpinning society are the only reason we have society.
Now, you may say that religion are old-school myths, out of date, and not based on objective reality (i.e. existence of the invisible man in the sky). Upon that, I agree. However, they were for a very long time, VERY effective at giving people a stable and clear idea of how to act in the world (morals/ethics), an authority structure to follow (clergy), and an unfalsifiable reward/punishment system built in to enforce compliance (heaven/hell).
But if you eliminate religion, you have NOT eliminated the masses' need for myths. The myths exist, to give people who don't have the time, capability, or inclination to think philosophically, a coherent structure in which to understand the world and their place in it.
So in the absence of religion, you need new myths to replace it. You have a vacuum that needs filling. And I don't think we, as described as "American society in general", have done a very good job of that.