According to a recent AP/NORC poll, only 34% of those surveyed said the American dream—that if you work hard, you'll get ahead—still holds true today. About half say it did at one time, but not anymore. Fifteen percent said the concept was always a myth.
Dr. Richard Land of Southern Evangelical Seminary submits that those who have done well believe it; those who have not do not.
"People's personal economic experience has a great impact on whether they think that the American dream still holds true or not," he tells AFN.
He believes the poll shows it is getting more difficult for people to think they can improve their current circumstances. The "dream" part is dormant, and the Left is playing that for all it's worth.
"They've used race and ethnicity, the Marxists have, to drive the idea of having different standards for promotion and different standards for grades and different standards for this and that based upon a prior racial prejudice," Dr. Land observes. "It, to some degree, has worked."
For one thing, liberal educators are keeping the nation's students in the dark.
Neurosurgeon and conservative author Dr. Ben Carson says "The America 250 Faith Gap" study from Brave Books shows that public libraries and book editors are scrubbing the country's history of its Christian foundation while including plenty of revisionist, woke, DEI titles in young readers' summer reading lists.
"A lot of people really don't understand the role of faith in our country, and they say we're not a faith-based country," Dr. Carson notes. "I wonder if those people have read our founding document, the Declaration of Independence."
Brave Books looked at more than 300 books listed on more than 25 publicly available reading lists and did not find a single title that addresses faith, religious liberty, or Christianity's role in the founding of the United States.
Dr. Carson recalls a story about George Washington that made a lasting impression on him as a child. During a battle in the French and Indian War, Washington was reportedly the only courier to survive. Years later, an Indian chief and expert marksman who claimed to have fired at Washington 17 times in that battle told him that he eventually ordered his men to stop shooting at "this man who's protected by the great spirit above."
"That used to be in all of our history books before it became politically incorrect," Dr. Carson says, calling it a grave omission.
"Our rights come from our Creator; it's a fundamental part of our foundation," he asserts.
Based off its annual "American pride" survey, Gallup says the continued decline in national pride appears to be deeply partisan, and "Democrats are mostly responsible for the drop."
But Dr. Land encourages Americans not to buy into the propaganda and instead understand that the American dream is aspirational and rooted in rugged individualism.
"The American dream is not just if you work hard, you can get ahead, you can do better than your parents did, and you can improve your economic status; the American dream is you're free to be who you want to be, to live where you want to live, to do what you want to do," Dr. Land says.
