The Daily Signal - American Dream Isn’t Dead, but It Needs Help

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

The American dream looms large in the nation’s psyche. Immigrants flock to our shores to make a better life for themselves, free of the chains that bound them in their countries of origin. Native-born Americans also can achieve the American dream through hard work and determination. But recently, many have come to view that dream as unattainable. Some view the system as broken and demand massive changes to fix it. To Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks and author of the new book “America in Perspective: Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation,” that’s a huge problem for the nation’s continued survival. “We’ve gone through incredibly challenging times, and this is part of our national history. And people forget that you go through these times,” Brandon says, adding: What’s scary to me right now, there’s all this debate [over] do we get rid of the [Senate] filibuster? Do we do this? Do we do that? Now, these are radical changes, and in my study of history … you could actually make some changes that will knock out the stability in our system, and who knows what we are then.Brandon joins the “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the American dream and how we can bring it back from the brink. We also cover these stories: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., pretends to be handcuffed by police during a pro-abortion protest outside the Supreme Court. The Biden administration backs a bill that would codify the Supreme Court’s decisions to legalize gay and interracial marriage. A New York judge drops murder charges against a bodega worker who fatally stabbed a man who came behind the counter and assaulted him Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh shares his stance on abortion and the unborn while speaking at a pro-life event. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, July 20th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Samantha Rank. You might have just heard a new voice on the show. That is Samantha Rank. Samantha is joining us now for the first time. She will be joining me in Virginia in doing some of these podcasts. So Samantha, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Doug. I'm happy to be back. I was an intern back in 2019. And it feels so great to come home to Heritage. So thank you so much for having me. And I'm excited for today's show. Absolutely. Wonderful to have you on the team.

So let's get started. The American Dream looms large in the nation's psyche. Immigrants flock to our shores to make a better life for themselves, free of the chains that bound them in their countries of origin. But recently, many have come to view the American Dream as unattainable. Some people view the system as broken and demand massive changes to fix it. To Adam Brandon, president of Freedom Works, an author of the new book, America in Perspective,

defending the American Dream for the next generation, that's a huge problem for the continued survival of the country. Brandon joins the show today to discuss the American Dream and how we can bring it back from the brink. Before we get to Doug's conversation with Adam Brandon, let's hit today's top news. Weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a landmark decision, protests continue outside of the court in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, a group of pro-abortion protesters were joined by at least 10 Democrat members of Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. The protesters blocked the road just outside the court until they were escorted away by police.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez held her hands behind her back, seemingly acting like she was being arrested. She then raised her fist in the air before quickly lowering it and placing her hands behind her back again. While Akazio-Cortez was the highest-profile detainee, other members of the so-called squad, including representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Talib of Michigan, and Iona Presley of Ohio were also present. and taken away by police. The Biden administration has voiced its support of a bipartisan bill that would codify the Supreme Court's decision to legalize a gay and interracial marriage. The Respect for Marriage Act, which was introduced Monday,

would quote, enshrine marriage equality for the purposes of federal law and provide additional legal protections for marriage equality, as well as repeal the defense of marriage act in addition to providing legal protections, according to a House judiciary press release. The Office of Management and Budget said in a statement about the policy, quote, No person should face discrimination because of who they are or whom they love, and every married couple in the United States deserves the security of knowing that their marriage will be defended and respected.

On Tuesday, a New York judge dropped a murder charge against a New York City bodega worker who had been arrested for the death of a man who jumped behind the counter and tried to assault him. Earlier in July, Jose Alba was arrested on charges of murder, but surveillance footage of the incident seemed to indicate Alba's actions were self-defense. So on Tuesday morning, Jennifer Segal, Assistant District Attorney under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, issued a motion dismissing the murder charge against Alba. In a document announcing the decision, Bragg's office wrote, Following an investigation, the people have determined that we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt

that the defendant was not justified in his use of deadly physical force. As such, the people will not be presenting the case to a grand jury. and for the reasons provided in the attached memorandum, hereby moved to dismiss the complaint. Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh shared his stance on abortion and the unborn while speaking at the Plymouth Right to Life event in Michigan. Harbaugh said, quote, in God's plan, each unborn human truly has a future filled with potential, talent, dreams, and love.

I have living proof in my family, my children, and the many thousands that I've coached that the unborn are amazing gifts from God to make this world a better place. me the right choice is to have the courage to let the unborn be born. His comments come just weeks after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and now the states have the power to decide on the issue. That's all for headlines. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Adam Brandon as we discuss how to revive the American dream. The Heritage Foundation takes the field on offense with their young leaders program. I'm Evelyn Homily from Hillsdale College. I'm Harrison Stewart from the University of Virginia.

I'm a journalism intern with the Daily Signal. I'm a digital productions intern in communications. For spring, summer, and fall semesters, the Heritage Foundation hosts undergraduate and postgraduate interns right here in the nation's capital to train our country's future conservative leaders. As a Daily Signal intern, I've had the opportunity to cover exciting events here in D.C. and work in a fast-paced environment with some of the conservative movement's best journalists. In YLP, interns are on the cutting edge of the conservative movement, attending exclusive briefings from Heritage experts, members of Congress, and movement leaders fighting for the fate

of our country. It's been exciting connecting with big names in the political world and better understanding our nation's greatest threats. If you want to go on offense with other passionate, dedicated conservatives, go to heritage.org slash intern to learn more about the Young Leaders Program. My guest today is Adam Brandon, president of Freedom Works and author of the new book, America in Perspective, defending the American Dream for the next generation. available now wherever books are sold.

Adam, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks very much for having me. It's fun to be back here at Heritage. I actually got my career started here. In 1996, I was an intern in the press shop under a guy named Herr Berkowitz. That's so cool. We always love having people who come from Heritage, come back, you know, come back home. But clearly, you've gone on to great things and you're writing this book about the American dream.

So let's start out with sort of a base level where we're at. So what is the state of the American dream right now? Is it in decline? Is it good? Where are we at? I saw a Gallup poll the other day that said that patriotism is the lowest it has ever been in Gallup survey history. And when I talked to friends and family, and we were talking a little bit before the interview, I come from Cleveland. Well, my family is that swing vote family back in northeast Ohio. They go back and forth and they debate issues.

And I kind of use them as my one-man polling operation where I just call and ask them what they think about issues. And they still love America, but they are very concerned about the future. And there's things that they can't put their finger on it necessarily sometimes, but just doesn't feel right. And there's just so much anger. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to start writing this book is just like we called it. The initial title on a notebook was American Perspective and we'll come up with a better title later. And it just kind of, that's what the book was about. I wanted to go back in history a little bit and take a look at all of these things that we've gone.

through, we've gone through incredibly challenging times, and this is part of our national history, and people forget that you go through these times. And what I look at it is as long as you're committed to a meritocracy, and then as long as you allow the system to kind of self-correct and heal, it does. And what's scary to me right now, you know, there's all this debate on, do we get rid of the filibuster? Do we do this? Do we do that? And these are radical changes. And if you, in my study of history, and we wanted to get into this in this book, is that you could actually make some changes that will knock out the stability in our system. And who knows what we are then? The American dream, at least to me, has always sort of been an economic thing where you come to

America and you are able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, so to say, and become successful. Right. Are we seeing that a lot of these things that are risking the American dream being possible are coming from big government, or where are these coming from? So I'm going to, you know, slightly parse out what you just said there, because I think when you take a step back, when I was raised, I come from a typical immigrant family. I have Czech ancestors. It's very interesting to me. We came to Cleveland because Czechs drink beer and make beer barrels.

And when Jondi Rockefeller opened up his oil refineries, you needed to put the oil in something. So that's why my ancestors came to Cleveland was to make beer barrels for oil. And it was the stories we have are not nice. It's flop houses and violence and pollution and this and that. But you had people like my dad who worked. Dad went to dental school during the day and at night he polished airplane landing gear. And so it's this incredible story of American renewal. And I really wanted to start because to me the American dream isn't just about the finances.

Because if it's just about the finances, well, do you really need a democracy then? I mean, because China things are getting better and money's getting better. It's more about this kind of this freedom to dream is what I like when I think about the American dream. It's that if you really want to do something, whatever it is you wanted to do, you can do. And I once lived in Eastern Europe. And I thought I was shocked when I was talking to my girlfriend about, like, this concept that we take for granted. When you're a child and your parents ask you, what do you want to do when you grow up? Well, where she lived, her family tended to run the bus trams and things like that in that town.

And that's kind of what they did. And so to me, that is the American dream. It's a sense of hope. It's a sense of opportunity. And the incredible economics, that is a derivative of having that freedom. So to expand on that, then, where is that coming under fire? You mentioned that it's patriotism is at all time low, that all these problems are popping up. Where are we seeing that happen?

Is it big government? Is it what corporations? Where is this coming up? I think it's, to me, I always ask, well, what, yes, everything you just said, but let's go back a little further. I think for my entire career, I'm 44 now. So I've been in this industry for a little while. and everyone was always focused on liberalism on college campuses, which is important. But we didn't realize what was actually happening in, you know, preschool, second grade, eighth grade, and some of the indoctrination that was happening, you know, kids when they were younger, right?

And we never really suspected that. And now what you're seeing is this is the result of an education that's focusing on all of our ills. Like I think we should, you need to teach slavery. You need to teach the ills of that. You need to teach what happened to Indians and then all that would happen. Like, I'm not trying to hide from any of that. But you also need to teach the opportunity and the overcoming in America, whether you're black, you're white, your Native America, you're whatever you are, it's been this incredible story of overcoming.

And that's what I was hoping. If you teach that, then all of a sudden you could put everything into perspective. Yes, we've had these parts that are not great in our history to say the least. But we're improving on it. If you weren't improving upon these things, it would be one thing. but I think unfortunately people are being told one side of the story. And that's why we wanted to write this book. And we didn't want to write this book to be very clear.

I run a group Freedom Works. We're pretty conservative. But this book is not written for our base necessarily. This book is written for our base as friends and our base as children to hand something off to be like this is not trying to be a right-wing, go-vote Republican. Now, let's just talk honestly about our country and the good and the bad. And we try to highlight, like, a woman who is in the gilded age who was dominating on Wall Street, a guy named Robert Smalls, a slave who ran away and freed his family and became a millionaire. And just this incredible story.

There's all these incredible stories that we just, that are of overcoming. And I want to make sure that we're talking about those folks. Because if America's future is about overcoming and people who come here, it's about overcoming these obstacles and chasing your dreams and built, we're going to be all right. It sounds like your book is more trying to highlight a lot of these people who, you know, represent the best parts of America as opposed to sort of saying, hey, the American dream is real. Just trust us on it. Right. And I think it's important to look back. And I thought this was years ago, the first couple of times I would go and speak to a mostly black audience. If I would start the speech by saying, hey, slavery didn't matter. I mean, the room would get upset at me. If I said, look, slavery was real, but I'm here to talk to you about my values. and how what I believe can help break cycles of generational poverty, all of a sudden, the room was engaged and everyone's talking. And it's like, that's where we need to be.

Rather than focusing on things that divided us in the past, it's like, hey, how can we help each other today? And in the book we mentioned, it's stunning. When you look at the statistics of Nigerian immigrants to this country and Nigerian immigrants are obviously black, they do exceptionally well. But what is being prioritized? Well, family, education, just the values that are happening in those communities, they're able to over, do they experience racism? I guarantee you they do at some level.

But they overcome and they succeed. And that's what's so beautiful about this country is you see these groups that are succeeding. And I just want to get this, try and get to new audiences that this message, anyone can succeed here. I want to kind of point out what you just said, which was that these Nigerian immigrants are very successful. They're like the most successful subgroup in the country. Right. Very successful, like the most successful. Right.

And there is this sort of idea that immigrants are coming to a country and that the country is terrible, at least if what you believe from the left. But is there any indication that the immigrant community in America feels as if the American dream is now somehow unattainable? Well, what's fascinating, if that was the truth, then why are people still risking life to come here? And this has been a beautiful part of our history. And I don't think it's, again, they're not coming here for our national parks and all that. They're coming here because there's an opportunity to improve their state and their life. And I have incredible stories from my ancestor. I have had a 14-year-old ancestor who was packed his mother, packed him up in Germany and sent him here to the United States, 14 years old.

And he ended up becoming a very successful person. But he never saw his mom again. And I think about, I have a young child at home and the love of your child to actually say, I'm going to send you away to a foreign country that you actually have a shot. Well, I think that still plays out today and we see that. And if this country was so, I think often we need to talk more to our recent immigrants who are coming here. Because when you do talk to them, my, they come here for a reason. And some of the conversations I've had is a lot of head shaking.

Like, what is going on? Why are you guys so upset with yourselves? This is still the place you go. Right. Where do we think that that sort of comes from? It seems like it kind of bubbled out of maybe the last couple of years where this internal hatred of everything the country stands for. Where did that come from? So I taught high school for one year.

And when I taught high school, I picked up the textbook and it was terrible. It was just so boring. It's like American history. It's this beautiful, complex mosaic. And you made it as boring as you can. So I brought in my own readings. Now, you know, I, from a lot of different authors that I like. And then I brought in this book, Howard Zinn, a people's history of America, and which was basically, I mean, how else do I say?

It's a socialist, if not communist view of the United States. And so we would read the chapter from the book that was a sign, then my readings, and then they would have Howard Zinn's readings. Because I never wanted anyone to say that I was trying to indoctrinated. So, but what I think happened is that the readings have been moved. So the only thing that people are reading is now Howard's in. And I think that when I just look back, somewhere along, so I remember I said I interned here in the 90s, you had this post-Cold War era of almost era of good feelings where we felt safe. We didn't worry about nuclear war anymore.

The economy was pretty strong and growing. And there was this optimistic view that we're going to solve our problems. And I think what happened is that there's an adjustment to the end of this post-Cold War era. And I think the rise of China has rattled us. And I think the rise, you know, 9-11 rattled us. There's a lot of things that rattled us and are kind of out of that post-Cold War era. And I think part of the problem that happened is some of those insecurities that happened after the 07 crash. And you have a whole generation of millennials who were raised in nothing but not that era of the 90s of incredible optimism,

but they were raised in fear of terrorist attack. then the fear of the economics of post-2007. And that instability in history always shows us that that gives rise to a lot of crazy ideas. And I think that maybe crept, broke open something. But the good news is even in lefty places like San Francisco, recalling that the district attorney who was just letting everyone out on the streets in the rampant drug use, and you just name it, I think you're beginning to see this reevaluation. Again, why I wanted to write a book right now to kind of put all this in perspective.

And when I was growing up in Ohio, one of the thing I grew up with was so beautiful is my uncles were all blue-collar steelworking Democrats. And my father kind of raised me more as a Republican. And there's the – but we all got along. We all played horseshoes. And these guys were the most patriotic men you've ever met in your life. And I'd love – I can't wait to get back to a point where I'm arguing with Democrats and everyone. But we all agree that's a great place and we're trying to make it better. And that's what I kind of think we're missing right now.

One of the things that to maybe play devil's advocate slightly is that all of those stories are from the past. Right. And people in my generation, millennials, are very concerned with their lot in life. I hear constantly people say things like, oh, well, my dad worked for, you know, part-time at the steel mill and was able to buy a house and raise a family on that salary, whereas people who are my generation are unable to even buy property. Well, again, I go back to you, look at the shifts that have happened. And my wife is a little younger than me, and she doesn't remember the Burrilla. one wall coming down. I mean, to me, I was grounded, and my dad put a TV in my room so I could watch it.

And but she has no reference point to that. And I think that what I really feel bad about is the amount of college debt that so many people have. And I think there is this understanding that, you know, you work hard, you play by the rules. And a lot of people have worked hard, play by the rules. And they're still living in their parents' basement. So I think that's why, but I wanted to look at the past to kind of show, to kind of try and take the temperature down, like we've been.

through these hard times, but also lay out that our strengths for the future. And even some of the things in this book I wanted to talk about, I think that we haven't over a focus on college. I wish it is amazing to me what the opportunities we have for people to go out, get a trade. But I'm also thinking of, do you really need to go to college right after you graduate high school? Can you take some time to go learn something and then go back? But I also wanted to show in this book for younger folks is that, hey, we've been through really hard things. And we will get, we come out of it. If we kind of agree on a common sense of values and principles, and if you don't do that,

well, then I pointed out what happened in Argentina. Argentina, not that long ago, was one of the richest countries in the world. Bad policy screwed it up, and now there has been. It does seem like there is this question of values and how that impacts the sort of greater success of a nation. What are some things that we can be doing right now to turn that tied back to valuing things that make the American dream possible? I think it's, I love the internet.

Trust me, I'm not a Luddite who's saying me to go bash and break up our phones or anything like that. But it is, it is amazing to me that how much of our discourse is now based on 240 characters. And you can hide behind it and behind the internet. I remember when I was in college in the 90s, there was a great book called Bowling Alone. And what Robert Putnam said is that it's bad for democracy when people start to spend more time by themselves and not interacting with other people in their community. Well, I think that that's something I'm, you know, younger generations are incredibly social. Well, I'm hoping that the internet can become something that doesn't mean that you stay in

your basement tweeting at people, but it actually gives you an opportunity to connect with other communities and work with and get to know folks. But what I'm really hoping, and my advice to anyone is take the politics down. I love NFL football. It drives me nuts. I mean, that's the one of those places. When I go to a Cleveland Brownsbacker bar, black, white, fat, thin, doesn't matter what you are, We're all hugging on each other, and it's this incredible non-political community.

And we really, I kind of think that maybe younger generations think that every community has to be political. No! No, no, not everything in America has to be political. We can be political during when politics is time. But outside of that, we're Americans on a great adventure and let's go enjoy it. It's a great for all of our problems. It's a great country. I had a great weekend, you know? I think of my neighbors and the barbecue and going to the pool and just having some great.

community, like, that's 99% of my life. And getting ticked off on politics is actually not the majority of my life. I want to wrap up on that because I do think that that's a really important point. We are starting to see Americans get a little more fatigued by everything being political sports is a perfect arena where it's not enough now that it needs to be, you know, a game. It has to have a political message to it, whether that's a Colin Kaepernick or whether it's the black national anthem being played before a game. Do you think we are moving in the direction as a country where people are starting to say, not everything has to be. What I think happens you get to these inflection points.

It's kind of like you swing this way, then you swing that way. But when you get to that top of that inflection point, one or two things happen. The pendulum either swings back or it keeps on going. And so we're at one of those moments where I think we are deciding. And look, I don't want to quote Rahm Emanuel here, but don't let a crisis go to waste. But you look at the gas prices and inflation, this is the result of policy. So younger generations that are struggling to buy that first house, now policy is making that harder. And so I think we have an opportunity to have a conversation.

But look, my brand of politics isn't name calling and isn't aggressive as some others. And so I'm hoping that my voice can be one of those that's more like, hey, I'd rather kind of like let's take the temperature down and talk some of these things through. But I'm looking at our nation's past. I am 100% certain that there's, you have this swing group in the middle. of politics in the suburbs. They don't want to tear everything down. They may be different from previous generations and change is going to happen. There's no doubt about it and people will look different and maybe act different and their jobs are, my parents still don't know what I do for a living and I try and explain it to them. They either think of lobbyists or politicians. They don't

understand the nonprofit world. But I think that there's enough people there in the center who are going to look at it and be like they are invested in the American dream. They're invested for their children and their families. And I think that group is going to swing. They may never identify as conservative, but I think they were going to be more receptive to what our message is. And that is going to be when you start seeing this pivot back. That was Adam Brandon, president of Freedom Works and author of the new book, America in Perspective, Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation, available now, wherever books are sold. Adam, thank you so much for your time.

We didn't even get into football. I mean, I thought we were going to talk football here. And he had me talk about my book. I guess it was a fun interview, you know. We try, we try. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. If you've not done so already, be sure to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast

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