I’m trying to understand how you took that message from this. The best I can figure, maybe the allusion to Col. Vindman’s bravery sounds a little like it’s referring to his early-career sacrifices in the Iraq war?
I think Jeff may have been referring to the circumstances of Vindman’s dismissal: namely, in retaliation for reporting up the chain (then testifying honestly) near the end of Trump’s first term when Trump held up Congressionally-apportioned aid to Ukraine (in order to extort support for his political allegations against his electoral competitor, as I recall).
…I get the impression that Jeff’s “Stay Gold” program is not especially compatible with that kind of zero-sum, might-makes-right MAGA behavior and ideology.
I wasn't born American so I like to think that I can say that I experienced a version of the American Dream growing up first hand.
I came over with a single parent and our family lived in a single bedroom apartment for years; sometimes 4 sleeping on two beds that were pushed together. Moved around all over the country. But slowly, my mother was able to get higher and higher paying jobs. Eventually able to buy a small, 2 story 1920's (?) suburban Cape Cod for $130k.
That same house now is over $500k while pay hasn't grown proportionally. While I'm living comfortably, I can't see how I could have achieved the same outcome if I were starting the same journey today.
My wife's dad was a janitor and her mother a crossing guard, but they still owned a home. That home is now also north of $500k. My wife has a masters and now makes 6 figures, something her parents never did -- even combined -- but there's no way she could buy that house.
The price of housing, education, and basic needs have all appreciably increased to push many deep into debt just as they hit adulthood.
Today, I think that American Dream is increasingly difficult to fulfill. Much more hostility towards immigrants and the less fortunate, pay has not kept up with inflation, social services are actively in the process of being dismantled, the underlying infrastructure of commerce hasn't seen the investment that we saw in the past (e.g. Eisenhower's Interstate Highways) because of an "anti-spend" mindset (remember the Tea Party?) and special interests (anti-renewables). I put that term "anti-spend" in quotes because we are happy to spend on tax cuts, wars, handouts to certain industries (but social services are seen as "waste"), and grift (e.g. PPP).
In the time I've lived in the US, I have not seen infrastructure make the same leap compared to countries like Japan, China, SK, or even my tiny home country of Taiwan despite the US being far, far richer. The US just seems to have decided that investing in the public good -- services, infrastructure, basic research is "waste"; that treating her people right is "Communism" or "Socialism". That giving more wealth to the wealthy is more important and just than serving all citizens that produce that wealth.
Is the American Dream dead? I don't know, but it is definitely not as attainable as it was and that's bad news for our next generations. I 100% feel Atwood's sentiment because I feel like I was fortunate enough to benefit from that Dream and I see it fading.
