POTUS 2016 and The American Dream, Part II

In Part I of this post, I suggested Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump had more in common than many have acknowledged. Here, I'd like to offer a bit of a diagnosis of those commonalities anchored in the contemporary challenges to the powerful national ethos and mythology swirling around the idea of the American Dream. 

De Tocqueville in America

ISBN 10: 1857151798

 Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835) remains one of the most important starting points for understanding the unique power behind the idea of the American Dream. Indeed, he begins his introduction to Volume 1 with an oft-quoted observation about equality:

Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people. I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exerci3ese on the whole course of society; it gives particular direction to public opinion and a peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the governed.

I soon perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character of the laws of the country, and that it has no less effect on civil society than on the government; it creates opinions, gives birth to new sentiments, founds novel customs, and modifies whatever it does not produce. (Volume I, Introduction, 3). 

POTUS 2016 and the American Dream, Part I

The American economy has been front-and-center in the 2016 campaign. In many ways, the rhetoric over economic policy fits a familiar mold I have written about repeatedly in these pages. Although foreign policy has featured prominently in this campaign, foreign policy seldom wins American elections. This contest is turning out to be no different. As former House Speaker Tip O'Neil famously quipped, "All Politics is Local."

Steve Benson, Arizona Republic, February 28, 2016

Yet, I sense something different in this cycle where economic policy is concerned. Popular angst about the institutions, leadership, and decision-making that have underwritten America's postwar prosperity is fueling insurgent candidacies that have spread like wildfire through both political parties—yes both political parties. For much of the past year, “expert” commentary has struggled to understand the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Everyone needs to eat some humble pie. It’s no exaggeration to say we all missed it. 


In recent months, there has been a lot of discussion of voter “anger,” “frustration,” or “disillusionment” as the fuel behind Trump’s support. Sure. However, I think both the diagnosis of what is happening and the prescriptions for solving the problems behind them are far more complex than most have been willing to acknowledge. With this post, I’d like to explore the ways in which the perceived unravelling of the American Dream is playing out on the campaign trail. For generations of Americans, the mythology of the American dream acted as a mollifying, stabilizing concept in American life. The 2016 presidential campaign is hardly the first cycle in which the American Dream has been declared dead or on the ropes. I think it’s too early to tell exactly where much of what I outline below is headed. Yet, it’s noxious and potent enough that it could have profound effects on America’s political economy (and the world’s) well into the future.