A perfect example of this is previous US president Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a rich, well connected actor/politician that became president in 1981. During his presidential election he used the slogan “Make America Great Again” which won over the masses and led him to a dominant victory in the polls. After being elected he wasted no time passing laws that only favored the wealthy and big corporations. This would lead to historians saying that he single handedly destroyed the american dream as well as helped create the huge wealth deficit that americans are facing today. He would run for office again and win a second term using the same slogan. This proves Gladwell right, because even though while running for his second term it was publicly
known that he was only passing laws that favored the wealthy, people still voted for him because they were caught up in the social epidemic he caused with his sticky message being “Make America Great Again”. His slogan has been adopted by potential presidential candidate Donald Trump and even though he has enticed violence in his rallies as well as being quoted saying racist and xenophobic comments. People still seem to support him because they are swept up in the social epidemic known as “TRUMP”.
Every four years there is an election to elect a new President of the United States. In some cases, if a President is well liked, they may be reelected to serve another term; but may only be in office for two consecutive terms (8 years). One of the few Presidents that held off a total of 8 years was President Ronald Reagan. He was the 40th President to be sworn into office, and at the time was the oldest to ever serve this country. When Reagan took office in 1980, he had many hopes and dreams to turn America into a great nation, and get America back on track. He fulfilled his goals and dreams for America and is highly regarded still to this day. He left office with great shoes to fill, and is looked back on as a great American leader. During his two terms as president, Reagan has had many major accomplishments/events while in office, such as signing of the Economic Recovery Tax Act, the Iran-Contra scandal, and aiding the United States in winning the cold war.
Leading up to the year 1981, America had fallen into a period of “stagflation”, a portmanteau for ‘stagnant economy’ and ‘high inflation’. Characterized by high taxes, high unemployment, high interest rates, and low national spirit, America needed to look to something other than Keynesian economics to pull itself out of this low. During the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan’s campaign focused on a new stream of economic policy. His objective was to turn the economy into “a healthy, vigorous, growing economy [which would provide] equal opportunities for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination.” Reagan’s policy, later known as ‘Reaganomics’, entailed a four-point plan which cut taxes, reduced government spending, created anti-inflationary policy, and deregulated certain products. Though ‘Reaganomics’ was successful both at controlling “stagflation” and promoting economic growth, it has and always will be an extremely controversial topic regarding the redistribution of wealth.
One of the most important aspects of Reagan’s time in office was his domestic policy. He knew to have a successful presidency and create a strong, the people of the United States needed to be cared for. His first goal was to turn the economy around from the stagflation it encounter in the Carter era. Stagflation is very similar to inflation. The main difference is that inflation is the result of a quick economic growth while causes the value of money to decrease with now economic growth. To accomplish the turn around, Reagan introduce his economic policy which became known as Reaganomics. Reaganomics was based in supply side economics. This economic theory says that lowering taxes through tax cuts increases revenue by allowing more money
When the names Carnagie, Rockefeller, and Pullman come to mind, most of us automatically think of what we saw or read in our history books: "These men were kind and generous and through hard work and perseverance, any one of you could become a success story like them," right? Wrong. I am sick of these people being remembered for the two or three "good deeds" they have done. Publicity and media have exaggerated the generosity of these men, the government has spoiled these names with false lies, and people have been blind to see that these men were ruthless, sly businessmen who were motivated by your money and their struggle for power.
critical time. Reagan did not start out as a man of politics. In fact, he made his
The New Deal provided motivation for governmental action for fifty years. The material conditions of the nation could be cast into the frame of the New Deal and would motivate public action to address them. The way that they were addressed was framed by the New Deal's notion that the dispossessed of society were dispossessed because of the irresponsible actions of those at the top of the American economy. Government would become their representative in addressing the failures of capitalist leadership to protect the common man and woman. Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the New Deal, which consisted of the Workers Progress Administration, and Social Security among several other programs. At the time, conservative critics charged it was bringing a form of socialism into the capitalistic American system. Conservatives sustained this argument until the 1980's when President Reagan actions brought conservative economic beliefs into fruition. Ronald Reagan was to succeed in defusing the political power of the New Deal motive. In doing so, he managed the public/private line, moving many concerns back to being private concerns that the New Deal form had seen as public matters. Reagan was to accomplish this by substituting another motive that replaced the faith of Roosevelt with the faith of Reagan.
Psychological manipulation the Party uses on the citizens is one of the first themes Orwell exposes in this dystopian society. The Party maintains this manipulation by constantly overwhelming citizens with useless information and propaganda. And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested. (Orwell 82) Winston Smith, the protagonist, is having a frustrating conversation with an old man about life before the Revolution.
In 1984, George Orwell explores the many facets of a negative utopia. Orwell seems to focus on the measures that the government takes to maintain a public of plebeians who have no personality or identity and believe that they are not unique individuals, but instead are part of a greater senseless mob of people who constantly work for a hostile and oppressive government which is involved in incessant wars. These people are taught to love. They then learn to fear their government because they believe all of the propaganda that is constantly instilled into their minds. They willing follow their government without contest for the duration of their meaningless lives. The government controls all forms of the media (thus denying the people the basic right of free speech) and use it to personify the government (known as “big brother”) .The government therefore seems omnipotent, or all knowing and always correct. Forecasts are changed from one week to the next always proving the government was correct. As was mentioned before, many of the rights that present day Westerners take for gran...
To do what makes oneself happy. The American Dream is represented in many different ways and every person lives and chases a different version of the American Dream. Chris McCandless lived his American dream by walking alone into the wilderness of Alaska. The song written by Toby Keith, “American Soldier”, shows the price some pay for their dreams and ours to come true. Jay Gatsby died trying to acheive his dream and get the girl he loved, but died happy because he had pursued her until his death. The band All Time Low wrote a song called “The Reckless and The Brave” that brings a new light to how we go about achieving our dreams. So I believe that the American Dream is all about doing what will make you the happiest in the end.
The rich tycoons of their society refused to share their money with the poor. Andrew Carnegie and Samuel Gompers both wrote their essays towards the wealthy with hopes to make a difference for the poor workers and unemployed. Rich tycoons would do anything to keep it for themselves, if it meant leaving it as inheritance
Comparing the perspective of the American dream in the 1920’s to the American Dream in the 1940’s and present day seems to be a repeating cycle. The American dream is always evolving and changing. The American dream for present day is similar to the dream of the 1920’s. An Ideal of the American life is to conform to what our society has determined is success. Money, materialism and status had replaced the teachings of our founding fathers in the 1920’s. A return to family values and hard work found its way back into American’s lives in the 1940’s. The same pursuit of that indulgent lifestyle that was popular in the roaring twenty’s has returned today for most Americans, many Americans are living on credit and thinking that money and the accumulation of material items can solve all problems. Through film, literature, art and music, an idealized version of what it means to be an American has changed from money, materialism, and status of the 1920s to hard work and family values of the forties.
The American Dream has altered over time. You will learn how it has changed from the 1930’s to now in 2015. The American Dream has revised a lot from then to now. Also I will tell how the women’s rights have altered over time. You will learn how that affected the American Dream. I will also tell what the American Dream means to me and why it means what it does to me. America has changed and because of that there are new possibilities and there is a new Dream and new Dream is better.
The American Dream is referred to by many people as the reason to come to America. It is, or so they say, the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Unfortunately they are incorrect, there truly is no American Dream, it is all an illusion given to us by our founding fathers as a reason for the inequality in which people are treated. I have lived in this country for 16 years now and have all the patriotic bullshit about how we give everyone equal opportunity and how everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. I just laugh when I read this. Throughout our country’s 300-year history, it is all about raising one person over the other. It started with the movement of the Native Americans. They were here before anyone else, and they were moved because they did not live with all the violence our ancestors did. The founding fathers continued to push them further and further away because it was beneficial to them at the time. They said if you stay here we will not bother you anymore, then when they decided that area was nice and they needed it for the white man. Then we began to take the black man out of Africa and use them on our plantations so the white man could get more money. The President ended slavery, but there were ways around it and everyone knew it. No one ever said any persecution of the black man is wrong for years and why not, because it was more convenient for us to ignore it. Now the people from Latin American countries have come in homes of freedom, and better lives. We tell them they have to speak English, since they are in America, but I do not recall being taught the language of the Native Americans. Since they were here first should you not have to learn that language?
I grew up in a home with both of my parents; one being self-employed and the other working within the educational system. They’ve worked their hardest to get me to where I am today; graduated top 10% of my high school class, attending a nice 4-year college, and they’re still working hard at this very moment that I may possibly have. We live in a standard one-story home in the suburbs with an “average backyard” and an “average house pet”; although we consider the values of the American Dream, does my family count to be considered the slightest of living the American Dream? Or do we stand under the lines of so-called poverty? When hearing the debate, they used their example of a ladder and it has rungs, which represented how the American Dream could be harder to reach depending on the size of the rungs. To sum up the analogy, if you were deep in poverty or even near the line, it would be “harder to climb” this ladder of success. But is that really true?
When the term ‘American Dream’ was first mentioned in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, he described it as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” (Clark). When Adams mentioned the term, it had much more of an idealistic meaning, rather than the materialistic meaning it has in modern society. At the time of it’s mention, the dream meant that prosperity was available to everyone. In the beginning, the American Dream simply promised a country in which people had the chance to work their way up through their own labor and hard work (Kiger). Throughout history, the basis of the dream has always been the same for each individual person. It