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The American dream holds that every citizen of the United States has a fair opportunity to achieve equal measures of success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.
Intergenerational progress then ensures succeeding generations not only share in that success but build on it and will be better off than their parents.
The Wall Street Journal asked respondents recently whether they believe “the American Dream — that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead — still holds true.”
The response was a resounding "NO."
In 1984, Americans felt much like they are today--- mourning for our country as we had known it for 208 years.
Ronald Reagan, running for a second term as president, asked America the same question regarding the policies of the Left: "Do you want 'mourning' or 'morning' in America?"
Reagan carried every state except Washington, DC, and Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota.
It was a landslide of epic proportions. He won 58.8% of the popular vote and defeated Mondale by a popular vote margin of 18 points.
America is mourning the current state of our Union.
Is there hope?
Be informed, not misled.
Polls counter perceived wisdom, with more Americans despairing that their hard work will deliver less and their children will not be better off than their forebears.
The Wall Street Journal asked respondents whether they believe the American Dream still holds true.
Here are the results:
Just 36 percent said it does hold true vs. 18 percent who said it never held true and 45 percent who said it once held true, but not anymore.
Compare that to surveys in 2012 and 2016, when 53 percent and 48 percent respectively said the American dream held true. Those polls were taken by a different pollster, PRRI, with a different methodology, but the downward trend is clear.
A notable gap exists in the belief in the American dream among different key demographics although there is a shared disappointment in the ability to do well in an economy that appears stacked against lower-paid workers.
Breitbart News reports, "Despite the lowest rate of unemployment in decades, more than a third of Americans say they are losing ground financially."
Women were more pessimistic about the state of the American dream than men, according to the WSJ poll, while younger people were much more pessimistic than those over 65.
The survey underscores a growing sense of economic insecurity and skepticism about the path to better living standards.
Half of the voters feel life in America has worsened over the past 50 years and believe the political and economic system is stacked against them.
Compared to previous polls, the percentage of people who believe the American dream was never a reality more than doubled.
In another NBC poll last week, a record-low 19 percent of respondents said they were confident their children’s generation would be better off than their own.
That’s the lowest level the poll has recorded on this question, dating back to 1990.
NBC reported, "Simply put, 2023 has been a year of mourning in America,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the poll along with GOP pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
They also said, "Those numbers are consistent with other recent NBC surveys showing persistent negative views on the nation’s direction, with a whopping 73% of voters saying in September the country is on the wrong track, the third straight survey where more than 70% of voters said the country is on the wrong track."
“We have not seen this level of sustained pessimism in the history of the NBC poll going back to 1989,” Horwitt said.
Is there a reason for hope?
In Matthew 7, Jesus said everyone who hears His words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Then he went on to say that "everyone who hears his words and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand."
It all comes down to that.
Abraham Lincoln understood that Truth. Joe Biden and the secular Left do not. Mourning is the result.
Building on the sand is easier than building on the rock. It costs less. It is faster. The foolish person thinks anything can go wrong, but it probably won’t. But if it does, all that's needed is to unplug or press the reset button, count to 10, and plug back in.
A simple reboot usually works when the cable television goes out. We reboot our phones and computers to solve so many of our problems. But that is not the way it works in real life.
So many people fail to realize life is connected. They seem to think a simple reboot will work with their marriage, kids, other relationships, family, job, morality, finances, etc.
Their country.
They say things like, "If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just get remarried. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just move out and find somebody else. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just file bankruptcy. It’s no big deal. I’ll just hit the reset button and reboot. There is nothing to worry about. It can be fixed."
Pursuing Leftist, Marxist philosophies instead of the Judeo-Christian values, which were the bedrock of our nation's founding, has consequences. Our nation is experiencing those consequences,
A reboot won’t fix these kinds of problems. You can get a new job, get remarried, move to a new house, or even a new town where you can start over.
You can elect a new person to office, but if they do not hold the values that endure and lead the nation in those values, the culture will continue to collapse.
Until we Americans choose a new direction, things will never change, and ultimately, we will reach a point where we cannot change the culture.
Eventually, you’ll have to tear down what you have built and start over. "A house divided cannot stand," Lincoln reminded America; it will become all of one thing or all of the other.
Jesus went on to tell us about the outcome when we build on the sand. He said, “The rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash" (Matthew 7:27).
There is a reason for hope. The Bible says in Proverbs 14:34, "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."
Takeaway
If America is to recover, spiritual renewal will precede political renewal.
It is time for Christians to get real and get serious about the power of God restoring our nation.
When Christians vote for political leaders who claim to be "Christian" but embrace Leftist, Marxist, and secular ideologies, we are building on the sand.
The wind and rain are blowing, and the nation is in distress.
We cannot allow the winds to blow out our candle in the darkness, silence our voice in the noise of the culture, or destroy the foundations that built a new nation under God that impacted the world with the Gospel of Christ and the hope for tomorrow.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Strong. Be Prayerful.