When did Americans stop believing in the dream of a better country?

[dlk]

Today we have:

* A $7.25/hr. minumum wage, not enough to live indoors (And Missouri just repealed paid sick leave)

* Poor quality public schools (the foundation of democracy) with over half our population reading below a 6th grade level.

* A broken healthcare system, where not everyone can receive care but anyone can find themselves forced into bankruptcy just for getting sick and women with miscarriages bleeding out in hospital parking lots or dying from sepsis.

*Rights we thought we could count on being methodically stripped away, one by one.

* Unfettered gun violence, with daily mass shootings and children traumatized and terrified to go to school

*A crumbling infrastructure

* Less clean water, air and soil to grow our food
*A climate in distress

Americans don’t have to live in this kind of world. We have to power to demand better, but we don’t.

Instead, we have leaders telling us billionaires aren’t rich enough and need even more money and power. And they have taken food away from hungry children to give the rich even more

Instead, we allow massive gangs of masked and heavily armed thugs to roam our streets and terrorize everyone.

Our leaders are grabbing as much money as they can, with shakedowns, accepting bribes, and they have zero fear of accountability.

Why do we put up with this?

[Ocelot II]

1. Why? Because a whole lot of people will happily accept their own suffering

as long as someone lower on the social totem pole is suffering even more. LBJ got it right when he said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”

[dalton99a]

2. +1

[dlk]

4. I chalk that up to our poor public school system

As Maya Angelou said, “When people know better, they do better.”

Texas has an abysmal public school system, by design.

[hibbing]

27. Pawn in their game

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin, " they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used, it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game

B. Dylan
1964

[Squaredeal]

38. LBJ also said, as he signed the equal rights bill into law,

“The Democrats will loose the southern white vote”, or words similar.

[yellowdogintexas]

41. he thought it would only be for 20 years too nt

[beyondtimes]

40. Why?

Because They have the military and federal infrastructure to maintain control

[Eliot Rosewater]

51. That's it, plus maga hates everyone who doesn't look exactly like them

[hlthe2b]

3. When R's- especially under Trump- decided pursuing a racist punitive hate agenda towards the "others"

was paramount, no matter what impacts it might have on themselves--now or in the future.

Hate blinds.

[dlk]

7. Strong public schools would be a counter to that

Which is why we’ve seen the Republican war on public schools ever since desegregation.

[Chasstev365]

5. Ronald Reagan began the era of Americans no longer believing in a common good.

[Henry203]

9. Almost all of our problems

Can be traced to that idiot. Selfishness on steroids.

[dlk]

10. Regan was an excellent spokesman for the Republican position, "Greed is good."

There’s a reason they chose an actor.

[misanthrope]

54. He didn't start it

Conservatives have resisted every advance of the last 120 years. Reagan gave it a palatable sheen.

[Rebl2]

8. It started

with Reagan and it’s been downhill ever since.

[spooky3]

11. Why? Because The Heritage Foundation and other right wing groups and individuals

Set goals to strip things away from the majority to enrich themselves or give them greater power. They put together a plan to do this, financed by Big Money. They had the resources and corrupt people to buy candidates and push their plans forward.

[ImNotGod]

12. When they succumbed to the fox news variant of the stupid virus. nt

[yellowdogintexas]

42. the takeover of AM radio by right wing broadcasters such as Rush LImbaugh

Folks listened to his drivel everywhere because small AM radio stations are all over the rural areas and there was little alternative. This was before Fox became the monolith. The Limbaugh hurricane was constantly beating this into the heads of listeners, and those who resented not being able to be public and forceful about their hatred, prejudice and fear fell right in to the Heritage Foundation etc drivel and then Trump came along and they felt liberated.

Then of course around the same time as Limbaugh's rise to fame, we had GIngrich

[oldmanlynn]

13. When we decided to just stay on our houses and not voice, our concerns in public

[bronxiteforever]

14. The Supreme Court under Roberts has destroyed the Republic

Money=speech. Corporations are people. The 1% owns the entire system and funds media, think tanks, attorneys and judges. The goal of the 1% is to protect their money which gives them power.

[Blues Heron]

15. none of this would be happening without the electoral college and the corrupt supreme court

[uponit7771]

16. RayGun that generation was hurting after years of stagflation

[dlk]

20. Yes, it was an awful time

And Americans turned to a solution that, in the long run, turned out to be even worse.

[uponit7771]

32. This

[thought crime]

17. On November 4, 1980. The day the New Deal Era ended.

Although sad to say, some economic historians set the end of the New Deal Era at the point that Pres. Carter appointed Paul Volcker to the chairman of the fed.

Anyone who visits or lives in a European city knows how far behind the US has slipped. The combination of a crushing military budget and the almost official Kleptocracy has destroyed our society. The Soviet Union collapsed all at once. The USA collapsed over a period of 40 years.

[dlk]

21. There have always been big money interests thoroughly against absolutely anyting that helps the average American

Those at the top want it all for themselves.

[dlk]

22. This would nevber happen in France

There would be riots in the streets and they would dust off the guillotine.

I'm not advocating violence. However, having zero fear of consequences has a very high cost, as we have seen.

[thought crime]

35. Yes, you're right.

And I think France got it just right with "Liberté, égalité, fraternité".

Liberty alone just doesn't cut it.

[yellowdogintexas]

44. the French really do love to riot. I think they were the first foreign country where the streets were filled

when the George Floyd murder happened. Of course there were many demonstrations outside the US the the French were on the cutting edge of everything.

They like to march, build treeet barricades, carry torches. There were a lot of revolutions in 1848 and the French were at the leading edge.

[misanthrope]

55. Well said

Short and sweet.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. When it became clear that Black people might benefit from it. In other words, 'twas ever thus.

[dlk]

19. American has never really adequately faced our history of slavery

And how deeply embedded racism is in our country. Until we do, it will continue to be easy for special interests to divide us, so they can step in and vacuum up all of our resources.

[ananda]

24. And genocide.

Those two mindsets alone are running our country now.

[misanthrope]

56. All tied together through white supremacy

That's the unifying rationale.

[EdmondDantes_]

43. I think the OP is looking back with rose colored glasses

African Americans had to deal with slavery, Jim Crow, separate but equal, riots in response to integration.

Women with sexual violence, limited educational and economic opportunities.

Native Americans had wars, reservations, limited opportunities.

Asian Americans internment camps, immigration bans, forced labor.

Hispanics low wages, immigration bans.

But ignoring that what I think changed was the ability to transfer work elsewhere. First factory work, now more white collar jobs. Instead of just competing with other white male Americans, the entire world became able to compete. When what was the middle class lifestyle becomes harder to reach, there's more incentive to deprive others because there's a certain level of zero sum to how people perceive economics. And too many of the elite got infected with needmoreitis. It's not enough to be a millionaire, you want to be a billionaire, and someday a trillionaire. More money than you can spend has to come from somewhere, and it's from the workers and the customers. So there's increased stress there too.

[yellowdogintexas]

46. the idea (done to death by Reagan) of the undeserving getting things that other people think should be

exclusively theirs. He convinced far too many Americans that welfare queens were real and were the majority of those receiving government assistance. That is another thing which has been beaten into the heads of the general public since the 1980s.


The general public stopped understanding what they were losing when Civics was dropped from most school systems People are no longer taught the basics of how our government works.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

48. This country was built on white supremacy and has worked to uphold it since its beginning

[misanthrope]

57. +100**nm

**

[ananda]

23. I would say never. It's the nature of the dream that counts.

Some want all white, and some don't.

[Ping Tung]

25. I stopped believing when this happened and people supported it.

[Blue Full Moon]

26. Reagan resting on their laurels.

[Initech]

28. When Reagan stole our money and gave it to the least deserving among us.

Who then started brainwashing propaganda outlets to keep us ignorant and ill informed about what's really going on. Lather, rinse, repeat for 45 years.

[mike_c]

29. because our political leaders have chosen the low road

It's a lot easier to stoke grievances about the past and present than it is to build excitement about shared visions of a better future.

[4dog]

30. Thom Hartmann has a book on this topic

The Hidden History of the American Dream: The Demise of the Middle Class―and How to Rescue Our Future

[speak easy]

31. When real estate became unaffordable?

When you could not afford to send your kids to college, and if you did, they were saddled with life long debt?

[OddMom20]

33. Agree with all points made above

Are we now sick enough of the bullshit to demand better? We the people have the power to elect those who can fight for our wants - so let’s do that! Right now shit feels bleak - but we can do better, and hold our elected officials to those same high standards. I know the idea of hope in this situation can sound wishy-washy and idealistic but without it, that’s the same as giving up (in my mind). Let’s not do that!!

[czarjak]

34. Making greatness is hard?

[aggiesal]

36. Because they've been brainwashed by Rupert Murdoch ...

He started in Australia, then Europe, now U.S. & Asia
I believe everything started with Murdoch.

[SKKY]

37. When they realized they'd have to share it with people of color...

....but, that's just the impression I get.

[Smokster]

39. Interesting

Dreams are not reality. Somewhere along the line a lot of people got the idea - by way of dreaming - that capitalism "can be made fair." It can't because that's not how it works. One only has to look at the game of Monopoly to understand that. One form of oppression getting replaced by another doesn't get much for the masses in the long run. Try bringing the "Rights Of Man" and "Freedom and Liberty" into the economic sphere of capitalist society and see how that works out. It won't be allowed. Both the French and American revolutions replaced one form of oppression with another. Do revolutions that result in authoritarian and totalitarian forms of statist communism and socialism solve that ? That's not the answer either, as history shows. Again, it's replacing one form of oppression with other. As long as ruling classes and class distinctions exist there will never be "Freedom, Liberty, and Justice" for all. Political proclamations about "the middle class" originate from the tongues of the ruling classes. To have a middle class means there must be a ruling class and a lower class. That is the essence of master and slave human social relations. I also have unrealistic dreams. Dreams of a society free from the chains of master and slave social relations in every form.

[Uncle Joe]

45. The ironic thing about dreams is that they can transition to nightmares before you ever awake,

and one person's dream can be another person's nightmare.

i.e. If you're an oligarch, your personal economic and political power is inverse to that of the mass of the American people.

That's why the GOP and their corporate media mouthpieces are quick to demonize awareness or anyone being "woke."

They don't want the people to be aware or engaged, so everything they do whether by messaging propaganda or policy actions is designed to prevent or diminish that from taking place.

Thanks for the thread dlk.

[betsuni]

47. Republicans. Yet blaming both sides is ubiquitous. The Democratic Party and leaders are NOT corrupt. Bullshit.

[malaise]

49. When folks confused the words richest country

with greatest country

[biocube]

50. There's an entire media apparatus

that convinced Boomers and much of Gen X that they swam through an ocean of battery acid to get where they are and didn’t need no guhment handouts and everyone younger than them is just lazy.

They're completely blind to how much they actually depending on government their entire life.

[bucolic_frolic]

52. 1968 and 1980.

That's when Republicans first won elections with foreign connections. Jingoism won both times. Big money capitalism and evangelicals merged. Now we have morality in an immoral ruling class.

[misanthrope]

53. This is simply a return to pre-20th century America

Conservatives have never hidden that goal.

[rickyhall]

58. When will we stop talking and fight these rich bastards. (bastard meaning illegitimate)