Do We Still Believe in the American Dream?
Believing in America's Future Instead of a Politics of Gloom
Some people say that our best days are behind us— are they right? I started thinking about this while I was putting up my American flag front porch decor for the Independence Day Holiday.
The national mood isn’t very optimistic, and this applies to both sides of the aisle. Are the “doomers” right about America? The doomers say the middle class is weaker than ever, the cost of living is astronomical, young people are not getting married and having babies, gun violence is worse, the earth is burning, and institutions and leaders are failing us over and over. The front runners of both political parties right now are both over 80 years old with lots of skeletons in all their closets. It doesn’t look good out there.
Some of the stats are truly frightening, and some are contested. The Washington, D.C., chatter lately focused on a debate about the “Cost of Thriving” in America:
On the doomer side, American Compass president Oren Cass’s index on the Cost Of Thriving found that families today are indeed worse off than our parents at the same stage of life in 1985.
On the other side of the debate, Scott Winship at AEI created a different index and rebutted the flaws in Cass’s study using his indicators of housing, healthcare, and transportation costs that resulted in a finding that we are actually better off today.
The winner? It depends on what indicators you chose to be sound. I personally found Winship’s case more factually compelling, but the charts don’t quiet the cultural discontent that America just FEELS more unstable today. And my grocery bill is dang high every week.
Probably like most generations, it's a mixed bag of some things being better and some things being worse. Medical innovations have prolonged our lives— Taylor and I have both already had cancer scares that would have killed us 50 years ago. He had a melanoma removed at age 18, and I had a rare ependymoma removed at 30. Thanks to scientific and technological advances we are living to see another day and, Lord willing, many decades more. The cost of healthcare may be higher, but the quality has also far surpassed 1985 standards.
But there are some worrisome trends that affect our daily lives, such as the rise in shootings that led our son’s school to do active shooter drills with three-year-olds or our neighborhood elementary school teaching first graders about gender reassignment without parent knowledge.
The debates about “are millennials/Zoomers better or worse off than their parents?” is a fruitless exercise. It's all pretty subjective. I would take higher grocery prices over dying of cancer young, but that still doesn’t make today’s problems irrelevant. So, I wouldn’t recommend a millennial vs. boomer “who has it worse” showdown to anyone.
I think the better question to ask is: What can we do today to believe in America’s future again?
I think we can all agree that no matter your outlook, there is a general malaise about America’s future. As I watch the beginnings of the presidential debates, I don’t see much about the promise of the American future going on and argue that more people should be casting that vision if we do indeed want a new “morning in America.”
The problem is that neither side has a vision for the future.
The Problem on the Right:
Tucker Carlson angrily asked Republican presidential hopefuls in Iowa why they were willing to support Ukraine when things at home in America were so bad.
I argue that Tucker and other national conservatives have a low view of America’s potential. He is working from a fixed-pie mentality: There are only so many resources and America First means we have to grab them all for Americans now.
Instead, let’s grow our resources so that we are an overflowing bread basket in America. When Ronald Reagan was running for president he set his sights on destroying communism in the Soviet Union AND reinvigorating the American economy— and then he did it!
The Problem on the Left:
There is a fundamental opposition to American prosperity.
Rather than grow the pie (through free-market capitalism), they just want to redistribute the existing pie from rich to poor.
A desirable outcome for progressives is not more houses, more cars, more low-cost food, or more people having children. It is in fact doing more with less because in their view the world is not abundant, it is a place of scarcity and Americans better face this fact. This is extreme, but see this laughable take from the Degrowth Left (H/T The Free Press).
Oddly enough, both the extreme progressives and the national conservatives view America through a scarcity lens.
So, what does a bright American future look like?
I’m going to argue that expanding the $1.6 trillion dollars spent on social safety net programs, giving people more government money to subsidize buying a house or having kids, or even cutting our taxes is not going to get us there. We need a radical shift to believe that the future holds promise.
No doubt, we are in a time of disruption, so that future may look totally different than the past. I’d argue that the American spirit has always leaned into these disruptions and blazed a new trail— even literally if you think back to the pioneers. Those pioneers didn’t see a future in the East Coast cities, so they risked their very lives to go West. They didn’t really know what lay ahead for them, they just knew that it was MORE.
People will argue about what our policies should be that will get us there, but if I had to write a presidential platform (and thank goodness I’m not in that position!) this is what would be on it:
Believe in the American Future: Make America Prosper Again.
The amazing thing about America is that it is full of people whose ancestors at some point said, “Not today!” to a future of doom. My own ancestors were refugees from communism and others rode West for the Gold Rush. Whether it was escaping oppression from another country, homesteading, working their way out of poverty, or marching for equality before the law, I bet your family tree has this legacy as well. There is no other country with such a history.
However, to answer any other social ills, we must have an abundant economic future fueling it all.
From Chris Koopman at the Center for Growth and Opportunity: “Americans once honestly believed an abundant future was just around the corner… In the 20 years ending in 1969, America enjoyed average economic growth of more than 4%, driven by unprecedented innovations — all fueled by energy. Rich and poor Americans alike were filled with excitement, even expectation, for continued progress… Then we began to give up.
The results? Consistent declines in economic growth. On average, growth in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s was one-third slower than it was in the two decades prior. Since the start of the 21st century, growth has been less than half what it was. Think what that means: We could be making twice as much progress, twice as fast, as we are right now — leading to soaring wages, better standards of living and even more innovations that improve our lives. Instead, we’ve settled for slow growth and stagnation, fighting with each other and not for a better future.”
Maybe I’ll write a Part II on what those pro-growth solutions are and why there is a moral imperative to growing the economy? Let me know if you’d like to read that :)
But for now that’s it, I hope we focus on believing in the American future this presidential cycle.
What We’re Reading/Watching/Listening To:
We went on a date to see Mission Impossible. It’s delightful that blockbuster movies are back! And no, we have not seen Barbenheimer yet— we have two little kids, we can’t go to the movies every weekend.
New ladies of bluegrass like Sierra Ferrell.
Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear by Jinger Duggar Vuolo (after watching Shiny Happy People on Prime)
The new Jack Ryan series (Spoiler: It is a Stinker)
The Bear on FX. Taylor is loving it.
Listen To Our Latest Podcast Episode: Do We Believe In The American Future?
