Answer the Question: Is The American Dream Still Alive?

Is The American Dream Still Alive?
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Is The American Dream Still Alive?
When you search is the American Dream still alive on google, one gets more than 10 million results. A significant majority of the results one gets seem to suggest that indeed the American Dream is dead and has been dead for a while now. However, there are others albeit not easily found that seem to support the notion that the American Dream is indeed alive. Different arguments have been concocted in support of each of the above ideas with the most common one being the hard economic times the country has been facing. First of all, the American Dream is a term that was propagated by James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book The Epic of America. In the book, Adams noted that America is a land where life will indeed be better for everyone, and there will be myriads of opportunities for everyone. While it might seem simple, the statement above helped to attract millions of immigrants to the United States, and the trend is still ongoing. People were sold on the idea that the US is the only place where they can live and chase their dreams. However, few share the above sentiments today but does it mean that the American Dream is dead or is it still alive and people only need to work hard and exercise more patience to realize it?
First of all, I would like to begin by saying that the American Dream is indeed still alive and people are living it every day. In a 2015 New York Times article titled American Dream? Or Mirage?, Kraus, Davidai, and Nussbaum elucidate on how economic inequality in the US is killing the American Dream. The truth is, the economic inequality in America is at its highest since the 1930s. However, I took an issue with the description of the American Dream that Kraus and his colleagues provide.
“The idea that any American, with enough resolve and determination, can climb the economic ladder, regardless of where he starts in life.”
I believe that there is no formula in life and working hard or having enough determination and resolve will not and cannot necessarily guarantee someone success. The notion that people have life “figured out” is one that I never want to ascribe to. Life is and can never be a linear proposition where people need to input a few missing steps for them to climb any ladder of life. There will always be ups and downs and expecting a straight line because one thinks they work harder than the rest or are in the land of opportunity is not enough.
The problem as Peggy Noonan (2017) explains is that people have got the meaning of the American Dream ...