I thought this was an interesting article

Bullet Points
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A little over half? Prez Trump voters I’m thinking.

A little over half of American adults believe the “American Dream” is still possible

Opinion by Héctor Ríos Morales

• 5mo • 2 min read

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SEATTLE - When the United States was seeking its independence from Great Britain, the Declaration of Independence clearly stated that all human beings are created equally and that we all have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Under that premise, more than two centuries ago, the Founding Fathers planned on forming a country where anyone could succeed and live a better life, thus creating the now famous “American dream.”

Even the Oxford English Dictionary defines the “American dream” as the ideal that “every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” And despite everything that is going on in the world, more than half of American adults believe that the “American dream” is still possible, that is according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

They asked a little over 8,000 Americans about their views of the American dream as part of a larger survey exploring their social and political attitudes, and 53% of them responded that the dream is very alive and achievable. Another 41% said the American dream was once possible for people to achieve but not anymore, while 6% said it was never possible.

Via Pew Research Center pewresearch.org
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Via Pew Research Center pewresearch.org© Via Pew Research Center pewresearch.org

The survey also found out some interesting differences in the topic of the American dream when divided by race and ethnicity, education, age and income.

For starters, Pew Research Center’s survey found out that White adults (39%) are more likely than Black (15%) and Hispanic (19%) adults to say they have already achieved the dream, while they are also more likely to say they are on their way to achieving it than White adults.

Even though only a slim number of Americans said that the dream was never possible, that number almost doubles among Black Americans (11%).

According to the survey, income was a huge factor to keep in mind when asking this question. Higher-income Americans are more likely to say the American dream still exists (64%) but only 39% of people from lower-income agreed with them.

Another factor that hugely influenced people’s answers is age. Older and higher-income Americans are more likely than younger and less wealthy Americans to say they have achieved or are within reach of the American dream.

According to the survey, 6% of adults ages 65 or older say the dream is alive and well, while only four-in-ten adults under 50 (42%) say the American dream is still a reality. Young Americans between 18-29 years old also have slightly different views, with 39% of them still believing it is possible while 51% of them say its not achievable anymore.

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I think this can be broken down by a person’s attitude and work ethic. If you expect it fall off trees or be something you’re entitled to, you’re probably very negative. If you’re willing to work hard, work that overtime or shift nobody else will work, save, invest, and start at the bottom and work your way up, keep close tabs on your credit score, you’ll be surprised what can be achieved.

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I hate these polls when they throw race into it. Its not the '50’s anymore.

Age…OK, different generations have their problems. Younger generations can make a good living if they will commit to work. Luckily some good younger kids out there but the majority…

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Yes. I started working in 1973, when I was 14 yrs. old and learned early that I was going to have to work if I wanted that paycheck, $2.10 an hour then. I worked after school and summers for the City patching holes, also worked in the woods helping my Dad cut and pile 8ft. pulp and peal popple in the summer. I learned early. I grew up dirt :poop: poor. Worked at many things, 20 yrs. in ARNG, when I was forced to retire in 2019 from an accident, I found I would do pretty well and has gotten (financially) better since.

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When we were living in WA state we were working to achieve the American dream. But at the same time a mortgage and paying on a college loan for my son ate up more than 2/3rds of our combined income. Add on top of that 401k savings and monthly living costs, we broke even. I’m not talking small wages here either.

We lived a normal life not extravagant. I still have a strong desire to to want to work but feel as if I’m fighting a losing battle. I’m starting to think being a subsistence farmer is about all I’ll be allowed to do by the gubment. I have to get 5 licenses for this, get a LLC to cya, have a plan ready for whichever gubment official decides to stick his nose into my business next week. Sign a contract to not break our rules and not sue us.

Compare that to sitting on the couch living on the draw is looking better every time. I’m not asking for special treatment but I am asking for the gubment to pull their head out of my ass and not be a hindrance. But the sheeple go, bahahahahaha you need the oversight to keep your product safe. We aren’t safe unless you are made to do these things. What did B Franklin say? About giving up your freedoms to be kept safe. Yeah, that’s where we are.

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I reckon because I’m old (73) I do believe the American Dream is still possible. I milked cows, pitched :poop: and baled hay until I was 18. Then I played sailor for almost 25 years. Then I was a defense contractor for another 19 years. My wife taught school until she was almost 60 and also raised our 5 kids pretty much on her own.
Now Everything we have is paid off except my new truck. :man_shrugging:. We do what we want, when we want and enjoy life and each other. It can be done. It can still be done, my 5 kids are doing it. Paid for their college. Some with hard work and some by going to Afghanistan a few times. Yes The American Dream can still be achieved if you WANT IT and are WILLING to WORK for it.
Sorry for rambling and now I’ll get off my soap box.

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I’ve worked hard. Started at 16 worked for the man for 40 years until I couldn’t anymore. Now I would like to be a market gardener/farmer and to become one I need all of the above plus more. Need to include that everything you grow people want it certified organic. To be considered a real farmer I have to own 10+ acres. You have $250k to $500 k I can use?

On the plus side, once I have jumped through all those hoops the gubment will give you grants of all kinds. I know you said hard work is required but I am talking about the barriers to even getting started. Can’t sell at a farmers market without those licenses and gubment approved plans.

Sorry to be ranting and I dont mean anything personal or to be insulting. If I was or have please forgive me.

PS: if you see a guy cooking at a farmers market, he has to have a food handling cert, want to give out samples; you got a cert to do it? I’ve done my research.and ithose things need to be in a binder you can pull out to show the inspector on demand.

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Head down, mouth shut, save/invest pay checks. If you are half smart, half lucky, after many years the pay checks you saved have grown and the American Dream starts to be possible. Life is tough, it’s tougher if your stupid.

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I agree and at the same time how much is our state and federal gubment creating barriers for entry to markets? I’ve pondered why was it easier to become a millionaire back in the early 1900s? I have come to the conclusion that state and federal gubment are a major hindrance. I’m sure they were probably acting with good intentions but the barriers are still there.

Your opinion may vary.

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Still, all things considered the American Dream is an idea never heard of 248 years ago. Of all the civilizations that existed over millennia, America has become the Country they kill themselves to get to. Yeah the Greeks, Romans Chinese etc. all had great societies at one time, but they all had Emperors, Kings and Pharaohs that all the people were subject to. No one had the same opportunities to become rich. Ask yourself why forever humans were throwing rocks at each other, but just in our lifetime we put a man on the moon. America is the chosen Country for a reason. Our Constitution and Capitalism found nowhere else.

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Pride In Country… :us:

National mood shift since Trump’s win is reviving America’s lost vigor

Opinion by Glenn H. Reynolds.

The other day, a former student wrote me regarding post-Election Day events.

“I just feel like a tide has shifted and that it feels more like the Reagan ’80s than at any point in my life,” he marveled.

I agree.

It’s not just that Donald Trump is the once and future president, while Kamala Harris has already shuffled off to the Mike Dukakis Home for Embarrassingly Failed Democratic Candidates, where she can share box wine and catty remarks with Hillary Clinton.

It’s that the entire energy of the nation, and maybe the world, has changed overnight.

From the Daniel Penny exoneration, to the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris before all the leaders of the West — including Donald Trump, but notably excluding Joe Biden — to the triumphant flights of Starship and a sudden shift in relations with previously difficult neighbor countries like Mexico and Canada, these last few weeks have felt like one big shout of “We’re back, baby!”

Well, that’s one thing elections are supposed to do.

Every few years the nation is, in a sense, reborn.

We pick different leaders, we change policies, we even, to some degree, change our image of ourselves.

Under Biden, our national self-image was gloomy for the most part.

You can liken him to America’s King Lear, a ruler whose mind has deserted him.

(Jill Biden and Kamala even make plausible stand-ins for Regan and Goneril. Unlike Lear, though, Biden lacked a loyal Cordelia).

It was a presidency, in Shakespeare’s words, constituting a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.

Which is also a pretty good summary of Biden’s debate performance.

When that performance made it obvious that Biden was not merely too senile to govern — nobody in the insider cabal minded that — but also too senile to successfully campaign, he was unceremoniously booted.

Though Harris, his replacement, had never won a Democratic delegate, no one dared contest her rammed-through nomination.

She ran a cheerless campaign under the banner of “Joy,” but in reality was a mere cog in the Democratic machine trying to pose as “brat.”

She took a drubbing, and now everything is different.

Under Biden, and especially with the prospect of a successor regime under Harris, America’s prospects were grim.

Now they’re bright, and all sorts of problems that were thought to be too tough to deal with — immigration, shrinking the deficit, reforming education, the bureaucracy, the military and more — are suddenly being addressed by competent people.

Well, as I say, elections are supposed to do that.

Of course, the powers that be don’t like this one bit.

Through a combination of censorship (in 2020 The Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop was called Russian disinformation; in 2024, Joe pardoned Hunter for what was on that very laptop), bullying via mobs and cancel culture, and sheer hectoring by a controlled, cheerleading media, the Democrats managed for a while to make the many people unhappy with the way things were going feel like they were a powerless minority.

We lived under a milder version of what tyrants accomplish, a condition called “preference falsification.”

If it’s not safe for people to express their true feelings, even a majority can be made to feel hopelessly outnumbered.

And it mostly worked, until the election revealed that most Americans weren’t on board with open borders, a DEI-based military, woke racial politics, a diplomacy simultaneously warmongering and weak, and rampant corruption.

Because that’s another thing elections do: They reveal the true preferences of the voters.

Tied together with Trump’s victory is Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (now X) and its rebirth as a free speech platform rather than a hive of censorship.

(Elite leftists have fled X for a new hive of censorship called BlueSky; their objection to X isn’t that it was censoring them, but rather that it wasn’t censoring their opponents.)

Free speech lets people criticize what the government is doing and what politicians and pundits are saying, and it lets people signal to others how they feel.

You can’t pull off preference falsification if there are any open channels of free speech, which is why the left has gone all-in on censoring “misinformation” — their term for a truth that is politically inconvenient.

But censorship, preference falsification and overweening government are recipes for stagnation.

Free speech and free elections, as we’re seeing right now, are the path to both freedom and dynamism. Keep that in mind in the coming years.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.

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“…while Kamala Harris has already shuffled off to the Mike Dukakis Home for Embarrassingly Failed Democratic Candidates…”

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Too many of us up too early this morning. :slightly_frowning_face:
-23 deg. with the wind chill this morning. :cold_face:
Going back to bed. :sleeping:

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