Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

I couldn’t remember the first time I ever heard about the “American Dream” if I tried. As an American, it’s a concept that’s been ingrained in me since birth. It was reinforced when we memorized the pledge of allegiance in kindergarten with all that “liberty and justice for all”.

The “American Dream” is shorthand for all the United States is purported to stand for. A search of U.S. publications over the last seven days yielded several hundred mentions in reports on the mortgage crisis and the latest jobs report, immigration and healthcare, television and theater reviews, obituaries, and this article by Mary Hanna of the Tri-Valley Herald:

“The American Dream is to be able to attack at will, eat anything they please and vomit it up on people’s cars.”

When we say, “liberty and justice for all”, we mean it, even for the California buzzards Hanna was writing about.

More often references to The Dream is used to describe middle class life. Cynthia Tucker, summed it up in her nationally syndicated column:

“Tidy little houses… big shiny Chevrolets and Fords with bench seats… health insurance to pay for the occasional tonsillectomy or appendectomy… pensions generous enough to purchase nice gifts for the grandkids.”

The Dream also represents the chance to have those things. It’s the classic rags to riches story, recounted by Wendy Killeen in The Boston Globe:

“Phyllis LeBlanc, who attended college at night while working as a part-time candy dipper, is now owner, president, and CEO of Harbor Sweets in Salem, which sells goodies in stores all over the country and online. Based on her own life, she believes the American dream is attainable for everyone.”

It is the idea that humble beginnings are no impediment to greatness:

“A poor farm boy who grew up in rural Mississippi goes on to throw for more yards and touchdowns than anybody in history,” Mike Bianchi wrote of retiring Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Farve in the Orlando Sentinel. “Maybe we love him so much because he embodied the American dream itself.”

It is the hope of transcending inequality, the hope some African Americans had when they moved out to Palm Springs, Calif. decades ago, before their homes were bulldozed for a new development:

“They came out here believing the American dream was out here in California,” said the Rev. Carl McPeters in The Desert Sun. ”They thought they left Jim Crow.”

The Dream is what has given the United States its reputation as the land of opportunity, and made it a nation of immigrants. Immigrants can even have the chance to become the next American Idol, as Sharon Fink of the St. Petersburg Times pointed out, describing Idol finalist Ramiele Malubay, who’s from Miramar, this way:

“a foreigner fighting to get a piece of the American Dream.”

And all of these themes are being invoked by reporters and politicians alike in the course of the current presidential campaign. Here’s Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont using The Dream to endorse Senator Barack Obama, the black-immigrant-hick from Kansas-Kenya-Indonesia-Hawaii-Illinois:

“The American Dream is based on a belief that we can turn improbabilities into possibilities. Our nation is moving out of a troubled time in its history, and I believe the improbable campaign of Barack Obama offers just the sort of possibility our nation needs.”