What killed the American Dream?

[Hot Pepsi]

The lack of political freedom aspect is kind of irrelevant as a foreigner though, as in huge numbers of democracies you don't get to vote if you're not a citizen.

There’s a lot more to democracy than voting.

[Nefertiti2]

"The American Dream" was a pile of old bollocks, always, of course.

I don't remember its being much of a thing, people emigrating from here to the US. Maybe I just never noticed. Australia, yeah sure. And "Europe" (Spain and France). But the US? Not that I recall.

it was a lot harder for people from the UK and wasn't the preferred destination. But for most other countries I would say the US was where people wanted to go to.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Oh sure, was just responding about England really.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

When looking at the UK v the US, there is an angle that people's lives are a lot more similar than they used to be, and America has been stripped of some of its mystique. Fairly superficial examples I know but when I first visited the US in 1988 the UK still had four TV channels, not many more radio stations, shops were closed on Sundays, pubs closed in the afternoon and we didn't have a McDonalds in my town. America was like another planet in comparison.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

And another thing - Australia doesn't seem to have the profile in the UK media that it used to in the 80s and 90s - not just in terms of TV shows and pop stars (though they are a factor) but also it seemed there was regular coverage of Australia on the news (usually courtesy of Michael Peschardt IIRC) and now its only on for show stoppers like the fires. Having said that one of my nephews emigrated there a few years ago, joining a cluster of friends who had already gone, so anecdotally at least there is still a strong pull from the UK to Australia.

[Lang Spoon]

Irish diaspora in Australia must be huge, especially post 2008 crash.

anecdotally, it seems to have replaced the "Jay-1" US work visa Year Abroad for feckless Irish twentysomethings. Even Canada seems more popular now.

[Patrick Thistle]

The NHS is always losing doctors to Australia and especially New Zealand. (And replacing them with doctors from India.)

In the past when I've mentioned thinking about moving to America the negatives have always been the health system that bankrupts cancer patients, the guns, the bigoted Christians, the guns, the obesogenic food culture, right wing politicians, the guns and the terrible adverts on TV.

But America still has a draw. It still has music and movies and deserts and skyscrapers and baseball and a great looking flag and a mythos and a mystique and some sort of pride. It has attitude.

But I don't think about moving anywhere now. Instead I want to see Wales move. I want to live here and I want my country to be free.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Sadly I can't, as things stand, imagine visiting the US again any time in the foreseeable future. Let alone living there.

[WOM]

What's jarring about the US is how richly celebrated its whole 'huddled masses yearning to breath free' / Ellis Island / the Irish, the Italians, the Jews heritage thing is. Which is then contrasted by 'sorry....we're closed....all full up' of the (I'm going to say) post WWII period. It's the whole 'everybody who should be here is already here'.

[Bruno]

Here WOM

[sw2borshch]

And another thing - Australia doesn't seem to have the profile in the UK media that it used to in the 80s and 90s - not just in terms of TV shows and pop stars (though they are a factor) but also it seemed there was regular coverage of Australia on the news (usually courtesy of Michael Peschardt IIRC) and now its only on for show stoppers like the fires. Having said that one of my nephews emigrated there a few years ago, joining a cluster of friends who had already gone, so anecdotally at least there is still a strong pull from the UK to Australia.

I'd probably add the declining media profile of cricket and RL to the factors, and although RU's has increased it's more focused on the Six Nations. Royal visits and the Commonwealth Games also seem less of a thing. Probably partly because of the proliferation of media channels.

[Amor de Cosmos]

The decline of the Commonwealth as an institution is definitely a factor. More practically, assisted passages to Australia were still happening into the 60s. So far as Canada is concerned as I can attest, all you had to do basically was pay for your air flight, walk into an Immigration Canada office, announce your arrival and show them your passport. It was not that easy to move to the US from the UK at the time.

[ursus arctos]

The only destination from which it was anywhere near that easy at that time was Cuba.

Even South Vietnam required sponsorship.

[Greenlander]

You're welcome to my British born uncle who, I think, got his US citizenship back in the late 60s or early 70s the lying, racist, KKK loving piece of shit.

My mum has lost her mind in finding out her sister sent Trump a get well and in my prayers message.

[steviecowden]

It was never great, particularly for people who weren't white, straight and male.

But Reagan isn't a bad marker, as he embodied the pulling up of the ladder now so closely associated with Boomers as a class. Proposition 13 in California decapitated public education rather than allowing residential property taxes to rise, his tax cuts as president had similar effects on a broad range of Federal programs (health, education, housing, transport, etc), while he and his henchmen demonised unions and government, establishing neo-liberal dogma as orthodoxy.

sure i read somewhere that Reagans greed is good era was the first time in modern US history when parents didnt automatically assume their kids would have it better than them

[scratchmonkey]

I've always assumed "the American Dream" was a lie, in the sense that it's been couched largely in terms of economic mobility, and how that has largely been reinforced by individual stories that aren't representative. Huge economic "success" has to be judged within the context of taking place entirely on stolen land as well as standing on the shoulders of one of the most immoral "institutions" in modern memory.