The American Dream has been promised to us long before our country was even created. All the way back in 1630, John Winthrop gave his famous City Upon a Hill sermon, promising a land where everyone could prosper.
146 years later our forefathers stated in the Declaration of Independence that all men were created equal with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (I’ll get back to that whole “ALL” men part of the declaration in a minute)
In 1931 James Truslow Adams wrote a book called “The Epic of America” where it is believed he made the idea of the American Dream a common desire. He spoke of “that dream of a land which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
So what the hell happened? Where is all the good stuff? Is this why people are so angry and frustrated nowadays? Is this why Trump was elected?
No, seriously. Follow me on this one.
Our entire country’s history we have talked about a land of freedom and promise. Yet for who? Who gets that American Dream? We talked about All Men being created equal while we owned slaves. We promised freedom and land to prosper while literally committing genocide against Native Americans. We went to war with each other over who exactly could pursue the American Dream. Our country was beating and killing everyone in our path for the first 100 years.
Then came the 1900s. The industrial revolution. The wild west was tamed, cocaine and heroin were used as aspirin, cars showed up. Man, maybe this American dream is real? Maybe we really can have it all. We partied so hard that they had to make alcohol illegal. We celebrated freedom so much we crashed the stock market. And everyone forgot about the dream of a good life as soup lines and tent cities popped up. For a decade America basically sulked in the corner. Then the Japanese did the unthinkable and attacked us. And boy was that a mistake. Suddenly America perked up, went to war, kicked everybody’s behind and single handedly won the second World War. Yes, it’s true. We walked right past England, buried in blitzkrieg rubble, and took out Germany and Japan all on our own. No help from anyone.
Or at least that’s how we acted. The late 40s and the entire 50s we pranced around shining our We Are Awesome medal and jitterbugged the America Dream from a fantasy to reality. A house, yard, white picket fence, a dog, a wife, some kids……We were living life. The men went to work and came home to a nice hot meatloaf cooked by their wives and did yard work on the weekends.
Only that wasn’t the case was it? Not for everyone. While the idea of a beautiful house and a beautiful wife was pushed on every magazine and advertisement, we still had a segregated society. We still considered a large portion of our population as second class. We still didn’t take care of the poor and our education system was archaic. We were a racist, segregated society who forgot about the needy.
Then, in the 60s, with our ego still high, we went to war in Vietnam. And who went and fought that war? The second-class citizens we wouldn’t let drink from our water fountains and the poor, unable to find the loopholes or connections to get out of draft or the doctor to fake bone spurs so he didn’t have to enlist.
So, while rich people stayed home still dreaming of that American dream, we sent those who we would never allow reach that dream to go off and die for us in a war that never should have happened.
That manipulation continued into the late 70s and early 80s when some politicians realized they could get rich themselves by lowering taxes on the rich and not raising the minimum wage so their businesses could make more money. They promised everyone that they would make the rich so rich that their wealth would trickle down to every man, woman, and child in America.
A lie.
The American Dream has turned to a system of control. “You can do it if you work hard!” they tell us while setting up hurdle after hurdle. Then they pit us against each other. It’s the democrats to blame for your life being so miserable They’re the ones keeping you from the American Dream. It’s the immigrants keeping you from the American Dream. It’s everyone else’s fault! Blame them!
Fast forward to 2016 and you have so many people without the American Dream and they are angry at everything. So they see Trump. Rich, loud, cocky. And they think “Hey, he could do it, so can I! He’s a self-made billionaire!”. Of course, they don’t see how he is the opposite of the American Dream. Spoon fed, spoiled, failed at more businesses than succeeded but sheltered by deep pockets.
And the years of being beaten down by a rigged, broken system, left alone to fend on their own, suddenly had an end in sight. Desperate for any chance of reaching the dream, the cast their vote for a mirage. Four years later the American Dream hasn’t arrived for them but they still latch on to the hope of Trump.
So how do we fix this? How can we possibly make an attainable American Dream?
By helping each other. By listening to hear, not to reply. Or worse, ignore. Not everyone is doing well, even before a pandemic. And just because you may have worked hard and sacrificed to get where you are at doesn’t mean everyone else is able to. By design or by ability.
So we listen when the black community says they matter. We listen when the poor need help and we don’t ridicule them for asking for a handout. We listen when our path was made easier for us but harder for someone else. We see that not all men are created equal in the eyes of the system. But the wonderful thing about our man-made system is that we can change it. We can adjust it, fix it, scrap it and start over. And this time, if we start listening to those who say it isn’t working for them, maybe we can help them. Maybe the American Dream is helping everyone to reach their own.
