I set off last Wednesday on a three-week road trip around the United States. I had high expectations drizzled in nostalgia, since I was repeating a project I’d done exactly nine years before: the idea, then and now, was to talk to people about the American Dream. I was hoping to get a sense of the mood of America ahead of the November election.
In that spirit, my first stop was Scranton, a city in northeast Pennsylvania. The downtown nearing dinner time was empty except for professionals dashing from cubicles to cars, and the destitute hiding in nooks from the lingering heat, emerging only to ask for money, either via long lies or by pleas to my empathy.
My motel, a run-down, squalid place that at $45 a night was still extortionate, was at least social, with the buzz of a long-term residency, which was what it was for everyone there but me. My fellow guests were outside smoking and drinking in the only fresh air and view they had.
Kevin, who was sitting on his milk crate “lawn chair” chain-smoking Criss Cross cigars, was the most talkative. He was a lifelong union Democrat, who, before I could finish asking “What do you think the American Dream is?”, snapped back: “It doesn’t exist these days, it was ruined by Reagan in the Eighties.” He then commenced a chronicle of his last 50 years of ups, and mostly downs, that began with “I got a degree in computer science from University of Scranton” and ended with “I don’t have hope. I understand why there’s so many druggies out there.” His tale was peppered with detours into local gossip about who’s a pervert (the guys drinking in the beat-up Accord watching us), who’s hard-working (his smoking friends on the other side of the motel), who’s an incompetent dumb thief (his brother), and so on, with most of his wrath directed at the CIC (Community Intervention Center), Donald Trump and the Sackler family.
“I don’t have hope. I understand why there’s so many druggies out there.”
The next morning, after a night of heavy rain, loud music and unexplained loud blasts, Kevin was where I’d left him, joined by John and Dewey who together completed America’s political triarchy of “Trump’s my man” (John), “Trump’s an ignorant asshole” (Kevin), and “Neither. Nothing’s going to change. Nothing. They don’t care about us people” (Dewey)
Dewey and John were passing the time, waiting for their boss to pick them up. As it was raining, they’d probably miss out on the $150 cash they got for a day’s work painting. And given rent in the “shit-hole was $1,500”, that really sucked.
Both were less talkative than Kevin, although not out of impoliteness. John was a tad shy, and a little confused as to why someone as educated as me wanted to hear his views. He was from McDowell County, West Virginia, and had come here for work, and to get a “change of location, and change of situation” since that was the only way to stop the heroin. He’d been on it a little, way back when he was a kid, but “he came out of it, with no rehab, but by willpower”, something all his high-school friends and family didn’t seem to have. He wanted to stay here because if he went back he’d “judge them harder than God for still putting needles in their arms”.
John thought the American Dream was “going downhill”, while Dewey burst out laughing at the question, followed by a loud “Shiiiiiiiiiiiit. That’s long ago dead”. He then launched into a soft-spoken condemnation of people on welfare, including some of the other residents, who “walk around all day doing nothing, drinking liquor, shooting smack, getting $700 a week, while I work my ass off and get less than them. That ain’t right and I wouldn’t vote for no politician who supports that bullshit, and they all support that bullshit.”
John (L) and Dewey (R) passing the time. (Chris Arnade)
I tried to spend the rest of the morning walking around Scranton talking to strangers, but the rain, heat and emptiness made for a desolate beginning to the day. Hoping for something a little more buoyant, I drove to Wheeling in West Virginia. But I soon found I’d stepped further into the gloom. I’d remembered Wheeling as a busy, active and alive town, albeit a bit forlorn, but there was none of that this time. Even on a Friday night, the downtown had the energy of a patient on life support: there was still a heartbeat, but it felt feeble and artificial.
When I remarked on the town’s emptiness, Mike at the Carin pub was bemused by my naivety. “There used to be 15 bars in the area, one on every corner, but those all died after the steel mills left and we are hanging on only because our regulars are too stubborn to go anywhere else,” he said. It was unlikely any of them would agree to an interview: “The only people you going to find around here are too messed up to talk.”
Mike was firmly in the no-point-voting camp (“I’d rather vote for Mickey Mouse than any of these corrupt idiots”), and when I asked him what he thought about the American Dream, he asked: “Is that like a show on TV?” When I repeated “no, you know, the American Dream”, he burst out laughing: “Hell no, that died 40 years ago.”
The next morning, though I was still committed to my three-week trip, I was beginning to waver. I still hadn’t walked anywhere — the landscape of the last few days was too sparse and too hot for that — and it was beginning to grate on me.
My next interaction — with Luther, who was buying packs of cigarettes in a gas station across the river in Belmont, Ohio — was another gut punch to my spirit:
Me: What’s the American Dream?
Luther: What American Dream anymore? I’m too old to dream anyways because I got lung cancer, so no sense in dreaming.
Me: Oh shit, I’m sorry. What stage is your cancer?
Luther. Don’t know, don’t want to know. The doctors said I got it, and to come back, but I’m not doing that. Chemo kills you.
Me: I’m sorry, but maybe…
Luther: Nope. I’m done and living one day at a time, doing my best. I got baptised on my 61st birthday, so I fixed myself for what’s coming.
Luther, buying packs of cigarettes. (Chris Arnade)
The rest of the day spent driving to Bristol, Tennessee, hearing more stories of pain, apathy and destitution and resting in blazing ugly strip malls, cracked my desire to continue with the trip.
Why did I decide to give up? While driving through some of America’s most majestic natural beauty, I was reminded that almost everything man-made in the landscape was ugly: bland pre-fab buildings that looked like they were airlifted in and plopped down in plots of land bulldozed flat, with zero shade or attempt to integrate them into the surrounding nature.
It didn’t help that I was also feeling physically gross, unable to walk and eating trash. That’s what’s almost exclusively available on the road in the US, because that’s what most Americans eat: great globs of fat and sugar. Indeed, America’s diet, outside of a minority of successful neighbourhoods, has grown worse since my last American Dream trip, with everything now somehow bigger, sweeter and fattier. This mass-produced, highly-processed gunk has about as much in common with what the rest of the world considers food as pornography does to intimacy.
There are still a few remaining culinary oases, with some vestiges of the communal and authentic still lingering in family-run Mexican restaurants. But even they’ve started to feel formulaic, and given over to pushing the most calories, the most grease, the most cheese, the most fat, because that’s what most people seemingly want.
Nine years ago, I didn’t think what we built and what we ate mattered that much; it seemed a small problem dwarfed by the much bigger issues of heroin addiction, suicides, joblessness and spiritual emptiness. Yet perhaps our gross food and bland environment are integral to the problems. Wolfing down four doughnuts and a Kit Kat Frappuccino from the Dunkin’ in a concrete plaza denuded of trees, or two bacon, egg and cheese biscuits from the Sheetz at the intersection of two eight-lane roads, in your car on the way to work, is no way to live. By boiling life down to the most utilitarian goal of maximising stuff and minimising cost, America has abandoned any trace of the shared communalism that the rest of the world understands as essential to a fulfilling life.
Our dismal culture has stripped everything of the sublime. And in doing so, it’s left the majority of Americans obese, flabby and despondent. You can’t separate physical and mental health which, like the two weights of a Bolas, are connected, each pulling the other further in the same direction. Right now, in the US, that direction is despair.
When I woke on the third morning of my trip, I knew I was done. I’d heard enough to know I wasn’t going to learn anything new. In the nine years since my last American Dream trip, I’ve come to realise I don’t like America, not as a place to live. We have an ugly, selfish, winner-take-all culture, devoid of community, meaning and the majestic, and almost all our policy is built around the notion that individual liberty, with the most stuff at the cheapest price, is the ultimate good. I don’t believe that, and my last three years spent travelling around the world have strengthened my view that while the US provides its citizens with the most opportunities, and the most stuff, we don’t give them the most fulfilling, beautiful and elevating lives.
Caroline sitting alone in a Boston McDonald’s. (Chris Arnade)
But while I might be done with the US, I’m not done with Americans, who have, like all humans, a tremendous capacity to endure. Take Caroline, who I found sitting alone in a Boston McDonald’s at 6am, drinking a cup of water, and playing on her phone. I didn’t know what to make of her. Curious about why she was there so early, but not wanting to make her uncomfortable, I left her alone until she joined me to vape outside, at which point she opened up.
She had moved to Bristol, Tennessee six months ago, after getting her “teeth knocked out through domestic violence”. She apologised for not speaking well as a result, although I didn’t notice. Originally from Grundy, Virginia, “a little coal mining town in the middle of nowhere”, she’s now living in a homeless shelter, “which is a little rough” but safer than Grundy. She tells me that after “trying to kill me, putting me in the hospital for three days”, her abuser was set free the same day they put in him jail. “He made bail somehow, and they let him out, and he’s been on the run and they haven’t been able to find him since, so I’m here.” Her father, “a good man who worked in strip mining”, died in 2012, and her mother is “an addict out of my life”.
I asked Caroline if, after all her troubles, she still believed in the American Dream. “Yeah, you just got to work for it,” she replied. What else can you do but believe, she said, still laughing. I suggest that some people turn to drugs instead. “Been learning and seeing my whole life what it can do to you and cost you, and no.”
America has not broken Caroline. (Chris Arnade)
After talking to Caroline, I realised my trip was done. I wanted Caroline’s sanguine, sweet indefatigability to be the final and lasting image from my trip, because while America might be an ugly and unhealthy country, at least it hasn’t broken everyone’s spirit. At least there’s still an aspirational American Dream bubbling beneath the drab, treeless strip malls.
Driving home, thinking about why I gave up so early, I realised my negativity had little to do with America, which hasn’t changed much in the last nine years, and everything to do with me. That America hasn’t changed much, that it was all so familiar, is what I find so discouraging.
A decade ago, I had hope that things were so bad that we couldn’t possibly keep ignoring the malaise, the emptiness, the ugliness and we would move to right the ship. Instead, we buried our heads deeper into the sand, allowing life in the US to grow even more banal and isolating. We still haven’t grasped that the problem isn’t economic, it’s spiritual. And the answer isn’t to build another basic housing complex, another road, another shopping mall, but to build more cohesive and meaningful communities. Which isn’t easy, but unless that’s done, little will change towards the good, not in another year or another decade.
As an American who is, albeit mildly, offended that “America” extends no further than talking to a few of the urban poor, I disagree. I am accustomed to the snide dismissal of the majority of the flyover states by the coastal elites, but this article goes too far. Why is immigration an issue in the US? Because immigrants still find more safety and opportunity in the US than their home country. Are there problems? Certainly. But there are multiple thousands working every day to resolve those problems in their local communities. They aren’t on X or Unherd. They are too busy preserving a life of service to those in need, regardless of their race or beliefs. They don’t have time to give a thought to Republican or Democrat. They care for the single mother struggling with addiction. For the child with no protection from the predators. If you want to find where the American Dream lives, go to the churches sponsoring and feeding refugees. Go to the food pantries in a myriad of American towns. People come to America because their children will not starve while one church lady elites so quickly mock as “traditional” is able to draw breath. Good luck in your version of reality. We in the flyover states will be there doing the hard work and giving you food and shelter after you have abandoned your vision of America.
This author is a real w***er. He is going on a “walk around” to “discover” himself. Which is why he comes up with such idiotic “essays”. He is unmoored and unconnected to anything meaningful. He seeks to find meaning out there. Thinking that the key to “meaning” is always right there beyond the horizon. If he actually stayed in one place and reconnected with those around him, he might find that things aren’t how he assumed they are.
Eh?! Pretty off the mark remark; perhaps the article is too near the knuckle. The author’s experiences and views are authentic. On the other hand, you haven’t expressed yours at all clearly, or why you heap abuse on him.
You must be very ill informed or sheltered indeed if you don’t recognise that he hasn’t picked up on a major problem in US society, which is more extreme than in any other western country I can think of.
He DID actually stay in only a couple of places in New Jersey, but obvs he can’t win here. “He didn’t explore enough the other side of America”!
It’s a fine tradition like “down and out in London and Paris” from Eric Blair. These are merely snap shots of life and shouldn’t be taken for anything beyond that. A vignette as it were of elites trying to understand their environment. I much prefer stuff like Hazlitt, the fight. A guy who is actually connected to the society.
Thanks Lane, an excellent comment. I worked for two summers when a student in the USA, 50 years ago, all kinds jobs, construction, repossessing cars, in a State School and as a carer in a nursing home. I drove a repossessed car from Atlanta to San Francisco and hitched back to New York and saw America when it was a dream. The people haven’t changed from those I still meet outside the US. The Sacklers, unemployment and bad politicians have caused most of the present malaise. Fix those, and the problems they have caused which is a big fix, and I could see the USA return to greatness and make a country fit for dreamers.
You’ve given an excellent (even if easy) rebuttal to this terrible parody of gonzo journalism. I’m mystified as to what kind of person could thumbs-down your comment.
Who are these “multiple thousands working every day to resolve problems in their local communities” and who are “too busy preserving a life of service to those in need”?
I don’t know anyone actively engaged in those virtuous-sounding activities, except for the heralding but cynical and corrupt politician – mostly Democrats – galloping in on their white, social media stallions completely unaware of their hand in creating all this mess. Most employed people just try to get through their work day, avoiding the trans hysteria, war news, Middle East tensions as best they can before someone discovers that they actually merited their employment rather than gracing the position with their made-up identity.
A recent drive across Texas last year revealed similar scenes encountered by the author. Small towns along I-10 were desolate, dirty, dust bowls evoking the scenes of tumbleweed towns in old westerns. More businesses were shuddered than open – in stark contrast to what Google Maps was saying. Every service was understaffed – if they were open. Menu items were “out” while half the restaurant tables were empty due to lack of waitstaff. Hotels were dirty apparently for lack of maids. The few remaining “good” places (restaurants, parks) often required reservations! The locals looked depressed, obese and dressed for a nap. Most hospitals in those towns were closed, thanks to the COVID mitigation policies enforced by those white night tyrants in the CDC and NIH who smeared anyone else who was smarter.
Things were different arriving in Sedona. It’s a place where all the good, wealthy people gather to celebrate their green bonafides. None of them spoke of service on the part of anyone. They drove EV’s even in a desert.
As for Churches, nobody goes there anymore except to view the aging architecture – a reminder of a glorious past. They’ve been marginalized to government so that the latter can better enforce hierarchies of redistribution (in return for votes, of course).
I don’t mean to come across so harsh but your rejoinder didn’t seem to appreciate the reality that the author experienced, even for a few days, which I believe is the new reality more than people know. It’ doesn’t help that the press won’t cover that harsh reality as the result of authoritarian government policy. I generally accept your position that people in “fly-over” country are more hospitable than the elites on the coasts, but it isn’t all roses either.
Bad architecture, soul-sapping, utilitarian and safe automobile design — rules that forbid an attempted re-opening of an incredible 1930’s era amusement park built by and on the property of a DAIRY (!) in Beaverton Oregon due to having wood steps rather than metal, ADA-approved wheelchair ramps (despite not ONE wheelchair bound oldster wanting that destruction) … that is all government-directed and dream-killing. COVID only exposed what was already going on. Maybe time for one of Thomas Jefferson endorsed mini-revolutions.
Jim Veenbaas
2 months ago
Great essay. Every journalist ever should do man-in-the street interviews. It’s the only way to stay grounded. A little too nihilistic IMO. I think if the author got out of the cities, and into small towns, he might find a completely different narrative.
One wonders: Is it possible to be too nihilistic when nihilism so easily flourishes? What is this flourishing if not a clue? Ms. Clinton described the people this man interviewed as deplorable. And we know, don’t we, what the modern world has in mind for such people. “There will never be enough water to wash away all the blood” (Nietzsche). What was Ms. Clinton doing when she said what she said? She was laughing. That young woman our writer spoke to last is not safe in the same room with the likes of Ms. Clinton. This, precisely this, is what it has come to.
Yes. I think he went on his failed journey to find the American dream to do a few interviews so that he could produce this pale essay. It went from three weeks to what appears to be less than a week to find out that doing the research was just too hard.
He could have written “I’m a miserable glass-is-half-empty merchant”, and saved us the travelogue.
Graham Cunningham
2 months ago
Some possible roads that late 20th c. Liberalism did not take – Nazism, Japanese militarism, Soviet communism or Maoism – we must surely be thankful for. But was there (at least in theory) an alternative to the hyper-capitalist, hyper-liberal one we have travelled? When I try to peer imaginatively down a road that I might wish we had taken, the nearest I can get – and do NOT laugh! – is something a bit like The Waltons. The Waltons is when America still loved itself. Itwas a kind of ‘feminised’ version of the Western. Its storylines had, for example, a modicum of agonising about Social Justice. But they were not so engorged with it that you dared not feel good about your whiteness or maleness or sexual binariness – as would be the case today. It was a place where boy meets girl and starts a family; a place where self-reliance and stoicism was your code even if you did not entirely live up to it. For all its sugar-coated Hollywood fakery it was, at the end of the day, my kind of place…..https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/take-me-to-your-experts
Tyler Durden
2 months ago
It does look now like it’s the end of the American Empire and the function of this big economy is prerty much uniquely to provide entertainment to the world. Both politics and technology fall under this sector, with the former having a secondary function in providing foreign policy favourable to the country’s arms, energy and security corporations.
Well certainly America is entertaining, but it’s a bit like watching a car crash.
Tony Price
2 months ago
Although this is of course music to the ears of those of us wanting confirmation of our prejudicial views of US society, I suspect that it is an American slant on what one could find in any post-industrial wasteland in at least Europe (they certainly exist in the UK). I do get the impression generally however that the US judicial system, laxer environmental and food standards, unequal healthcare coverage, and lower support from a welfare state are set up to exaggerate the deleterious effects of societal changes.
Everyone has access to healthcare and it’s “free” if you’re willing to wait in line at the ER. It’s health insurance that complicates things, thanks to the regulatory state and fixed payment schedules.
We are a welfare state. It’s one of the main reasons millions want to come here – contributing to the deleterious effects of societal change.
RA Znayder
2 months ago
From what I have been told people were poor in the 19th and early 20th century. But people were hopeful. There was a strong sense of community among the working class, they were well organized and surprisingly well read on complex political and economic issues despite not heaving degrees. The US was known to have a free working class press firmly on the side of the people. They understood their own social position and repression and built movements around it. Aiming for radical new alternative worlds was common. There were some big crises but after each of them workers came out stronger. Tomorrow would be a bit better than today, the future for your children a bit brighter, that is a great motivator. The other way around is a recipe for despair.
Living standards greatly improved in the postwar period, producing the middle class. So much so, perhaps, that in the 60s the youth took the search for spirituality and community to a whole new level. In France ’68 almost turned into a literal revolution. Not much later, in the 70s, elites decided it had gone far enough. The middle class had been built on growth and prosperity but also at the expense of the economic elites; never had the West seen so little inequality. This was becoming a problem as economic growth stagnated and wage labor well protected, especially in the face of oil crisis. Elites had to act and push the working class back and so they did. Kevin was right to identify Reagan as one of their most important foot soldiers to sell the necessary policies. It was not just about transferring back wealth to the upper class, although that clearly happened. The crushing of labor, their organizations (e.g. unions), atomization, propaganda, consumerism and impoverishment of education were all part of the program. Thinking about alternative systems has been beaten out of people’s heads with great succes. There Is No Alternative, many people actually believe that now.
From this history it would seem that the economic does play a role and is related to community and spirit. Or at the very least, that the spiritual can be crushed for economic reasons.
Laura Creighton
2 months ago
_Travels with Charley_ this wasn’t. Next time bring a dog?
Well, there was only one John Steinbeck. But I do think that dogs can work as excellent openers of conversation, in precisely the same way that announcing that you are from the press does not.
Peter Principle
2 months ago
““He made bail somehow, and they let him out, and he’s been on the run and they haven’t been able to find him since, so I’m here.”
Let’s hope that the abuser is not an Unherd reader, otherwise he shall be paying a visit to the homeless shelter in Bristol, Tennessee.
Caradog Wiliams
2 months ago
I am not American but have visited many times. My understanding of the American Dream is that if anybody works and works and works .. then that person can get rich. It is not that everybody can get rich by having a job. At all times in American history there have been some very rich and many very poor. The two world wars increased the number of the rich – but for a medium term only.
It would be interesting to see figures of poverty in America, as understood by the European definition of ‘poverty’ – relating to the median wage. I suspect that America would be very poor indeed.
When you define poverty relative to the median income, there will always be a substantial body of “poor,” irrespective of the actual level of income. The intent of such a measure is to emphasize income inequality rather than absolute poverty. Defining poor relative to the income needed to feed, house and clothe a family is a more accurate way to measure poverty.
Clearly you’re not good at it then, you should probably go back to school.
0 0
2 months ago
The problem is not spiritual. It’s the pursuit of shareholder value that’s laid America to waste. It could happen here too.
Michael Lipkin
2 months ago
During the cold war the Soviet Union cast a pall over the world. It was not just that commies were evil and killed loads of people, more important in the minds of Western elites where that commies would ´take all our stuff¨.
Therefore, at this time, the elites wanted to prevent trouble and threw a few biscuits to the proles. With the fall of the Soviet Union the pall lifted and Western elites were able to PAAARTY!
Some (but not all) elite partying does create wealth, of a certain type, the US has always been materially rich.
The US elite, in a giant country protected by two huge moats, has always partied harder then European elites who inherited a blood soaked past and were nearer the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Now US elite partying is reaching its height with the furniture being smashed.
Daniel Lee
2 months ago
“I’ve come to realise I don’t like America, not as a place to live. We have an ugly, selfish, winner-take-all culture, devoid of community, meaning and the majestic, and almost all our policy is built around the notion that individual liberty, with the most stuff at the cheapest price, is the ultimate good.”
This was your opinion all along, I expect, judging from the carefully selected worst possible examples of America and Americans that you chose to write about in the same hackneyed tone of anti-capitalist propaganda the Progressive Left has been using literally now for a century. Yawn.
I disagree. Repost (sorry): Bad architecture, soul-sapping, utilitarian and safe automobile design — rules that forbid an attempted re-opening of an incredible 1930’s era amusement park built by and on the property of a DAIRY (!) in Beaverton Oregon due to having wood steps rather than metal, ADA-approved wheelchair ramps (despite not ONE wheelchair bound oldster wanting that destruction) … that is all government-directed and dream-killing. COVID only exposed what was already going on. Maybe time for one of Thomas Jefferson endorsed mini-revolutions.
Richard Ross
2 months ago
Alexis de Toucqueville, early in the American experiment: “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Because freedom can only exist if people are personally good, as in agreeing to a mutual social pact to voluntarily follow the law. Anything else becomes a police state, in some form. Human nature has not changed; laws punish not persuade.
And having already quoted one dead white guy, I’ll refrain from copying in John Adams’ famous quote about whom the US Constitution was intended for. (Hint: “a religious people”. And, pretty sure he did not mean just any-old-religion).
Carissa Pavlica
2 months ago
Scranton and Wheeling West Virginia are hardly the two locations I’d begin my hunt for the American dream. Who wrote your itinerary? Why did you choose those places the first time? The Office and opioids come to mind. You’re right. We have terrible food. We add too many chemicals and think big is more. We have terrible laws in that respect compared with the rest of the world. And in my neck of the woods, people don’t pop round for a coffee like they do in the UK and elsewhere. But my sister knocks on doors for a living and while she sees the darkness, it’s filled with far more light. She’s attended church with elderly people and gone hiking with some younger. There is lemonade and conversation. Two days in two towns not known for much of anything positive leads me to believe you set out to prove a apecific theory and you did.
The author clearly cited the fact that the pope he ran into were on the street, not in homes like your sister encounters. That’s a separate lot.
Exactly where do you propose the itinerary? Even San Francisco is literally a piss mess, unless you talk to the Pelosi’s and their circle of insider trading beneficiaries.
The Texas border towns are a lot closer to what the author described. As are the many decaying midwest cities and towns.
Alex Lekas
2 months ago
I’m not sure that talking to a cherry-picked handful of people constitutes ‘talking to America’ but the writer will do the writer. Despite the author’s belief to the contrary, the country has changed and not necessarily for the better.
Govt has grown out of control and is only accountable to its donors. Crime and dysfunction have been normalized, public education is a self-created punch line, and we are determined to replicate the UK’s issue with unchecked immigration.
Some people pretend that an election will change everything. It won’t. At best, a Trump win may slow down the eventual reckoning. A Harris win will gets us there faster. I’m not sure which is preferable.
Peter G
2 months ago
The author’s goal is reflected in the people he chose to interview rather than any objective inquiry. Looks to me more like a journey of confirmation of his own dark vision than a meaningful exploration of the health broadly of the American dream.
Dave Canuck
2 months ago
Life is a dream for some, a nightmare for others, I suspect that is the case anywhere, always was and always will be. If you choose to stay in 45$ motels your odds are pretty good of finding the struggling ones nearby, maybe the author can try the Holiday Inn next time and interview the middle class.
The Holiday Inn is packed with illegal aliens. They’re here more for the handouts than an opportunity to win the American Dream. If they desired the latter they’d vote more like Republicans and you can bet that the border would be controlled and closed if that were the case.
My town doesn’t have a hotel I’d recommend due to their reinvention as refugee camps. A racket all paid at inflated prices with my taxes, of course.
M To the Tea
2 months ago
Honestly, the reality is this: Immigrants in the US or Europe can become homeless or rich, but American or European expats in other countries are often, if not always, rich. It almost seems like the American Dream is a projection—it works better outside of America. Anyhow, this author seems to give up 3 weeks of driving in Midwest US…sad to hear? He could have met many more interesting people if he was not so impulsive.
That is because those expats are often people with something like an engineering PhD who are able to compete globally. It is a small group who will go to where the money and facilities are, which is often still the US.
Could have gone to a baseball game and enjoyed a nice hot dog, or stopped at a new brewery and enjoyed some tasty beer we didn’t have too long ago.
A little change from bumming cigarettes at a flophouse. A fuller picture.
Jim Farnsworth
2 months ago
Stopping the ambitious journey after only seeing a couple of run down spots and calling it the state of all America is great for his opinion piece but has as much credibility as going to LA and then saying he understands the American west. Article started well but bailing after such a short time deflates all credibility.
mike flynn
2 months ago
Most people usually find what they’re looking for. This writer is no exception. He could have stayed home and wrote this at his desk.
Anthony Taylor
1 month ago
This was a fair column, as far as it goes, which is not very far. The author seems to be looking for meaning in all the squalor he found, when really, he only saw a few people in extremely disadvantaged circumstances. It was poverty porn really.
America’s current problems stem from conscious policies enacted over half a century and more. Americans voted for politicians to enact what they wanted, which was more for me and mine and less for everyone else. It’s the American Way you know.
It’s true that larger American society is probably at an inflection point – Harris and Trump are just bit players.
The vapid worship of celebrities, wealth and influencers is redolent of the Gilded Age, when the worship was simply for wealth and power. That era fell apart, just as this one will.
blue 0
1 month ago
Chris may not realize it, but he makes the case for restoring Federalism. The US is too big and diverse for central planning and control. What works in NY will probably not work in WV. Let the people find and elect excellent Governors to help correct the course. But in the end the people must get involved and take control. The govt is not going to fix this.
Ex Nihilo
1 month ago
The American Dream is a trite trope. If anything, America suffers from too much dreaming and not enough reality. Generations of young people here have been suckled on the teat of “follow your dreams” to the ridiculous extreme that hordes of them aspire to be the next Taylor Swift or LeBron James instead of something pragmatically realistic. Too few cherish achievable dreams like becoming a really good elementary school teacher who pays close attention to her studies in college because children’s development depends on it; or a mechanic who diagnoses your car problem and fixes it right the first time; or someone who doesn’t think it beneath their dreamy sense of entitlement to simply show up for work on time every day to a job that probably pretty well matches their talent if not their dreams. Too ordinary. Not dreamy enough. Not worthy of me.
Contrary to the prevailing mush, dreaming and hoping beyond one’s abilities unaccompanied by sustained effective effort is usually a formula for failure. The exceptions may be fascinating but don’t disprove the rule. A lifetime in a profession dealing every day at the literal bleeding edge of America’s most down-and-out eloquently informs me firsthand as to how often the catastrophic outcomes of the unfortunate are linked to poor choices they made. Often those choices were inspired and encouraged by a “dream culture” that proliferates narcissistic contempt for the ordinary, aversion to effort or inconvenience, preoccupation with sensate gratification, disregard for others, and obsession with achieving attention. That American Dream we would be better without.
Main Edition
US
FR
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeAs an American who is, albeit mildly, offended that “America” extends no further than talking to a few of the urban poor, I disagree. I am accustomed to the snide dismissal of the majority of the flyover states by the coastal elites, but this article goes too far. Why is immigration an issue in the US? Because immigrants still find more safety and opportunity in the US than their home country. Are there problems? Certainly. But there are multiple thousands working every day to resolve those problems in their local communities. They aren’t on X or Unherd. They are too busy preserving a life of service to those in need, regardless of their race or beliefs. They don’t have time to give a thought to Republican or Democrat. They care for the single mother struggling with addiction. For the child with no protection from the predators. If you want to find where the American Dream lives, go to the churches sponsoring and feeding refugees. Go to the food pantries in a myriad of American towns. People come to America because their children will not starve while one church lady elites so quickly mock as “traditional” is able to draw breath. Good luck in your version of reality. We in the flyover states will be there doing the hard work and giving you food and shelter after you have abandoned your vision of America.
This author is a real w***er. He is going on a “walk around” to “discover” himself. Which is why he comes up with such idiotic “essays”. He is unmoored and unconnected to anything meaningful. He seeks to find meaning out there. Thinking that the key to “meaning” is always right there beyond the horizon. If he actually stayed in one place and reconnected with those around him, he might find that things aren’t how he assumed they are.
Eh?! Pretty off the mark remark; perhaps the article is too near the knuckle. The author’s experiences and views are authentic. On the other hand, you haven’t expressed yours at all clearly, or why you heap abuse on him.
You must be very ill informed or sheltered indeed if you don’t recognise that he hasn’t picked up on a major problem in US society, which is more extreme than in any other western country I can think of.
He DID actually stay in only a couple of places in New Jersey, but obvs he can’t win here. “He didn’t explore enough the other side of America”!
More extreme in the us? I think not.
It’s a fine tradition like “down and out in London and Paris” from Eric Blair. These are merely snap shots of life and shouldn’t be taken for anything beyond that. A vignette as it were of elites trying to understand their environment. I much prefer stuff like Hazlitt, the fight. A guy who is actually connected to the society.
Excellent, excellent comment.
Thanks Lane, an excellent comment. I worked for two summers when a student in the USA, 50 years ago, all kinds jobs, construction, repossessing cars, in a State School and as a carer in a nursing home. I drove a repossessed car from Atlanta to San Francisco and hitched back to New York and saw America when it was a dream. The people haven’t changed from those I still meet outside the US. The Sacklers, unemployment and bad politicians have caused most of the present malaise. Fix those, and the problems they have caused which is a big fix, and I could see the USA return to greatness and make a country fit for dreamers.
You’ve given an excellent (even if easy) rebuttal to this terrible parody of gonzo journalism. I’m mystified as to what kind of person could thumbs-down your comment.
Who are these “multiple thousands working every day to resolve problems in their local communities” and who are “too busy preserving a life of service to those in need”?
I don’t know anyone actively engaged in those virtuous-sounding activities, except for the heralding but cynical and corrupt politician – mostly Democrats – galloping in on their white, social media stallions completely unaware of their hand in creating all this mess. Most employed people just try to get through their work day, avoiding the trans hysteria, war news, Middle East tensions as best they can before someone discovers that they actually merited their employment rather than gracing the position with their made-up identity.
A recent drive across Texas last year revealed similar scenes encountered by the author. Small towns along I-10 were desolate, dirty, dust bowls evoking the scenes of tumbleweed towns in old westerns. More businesses were shuddered than open – in stark contrast to what Google Maps was saying. Every service was understaffed – if they were open. Menu items were “out” while half the restaurant tables were empty due to lack of waitstaff. Hotels were dirty apparently for lack of maids. The few remaining “good” places (restaurants, parks) often required reservations! The locals looked depressed, obese and dressed for a nap. Most hospitals in those towns were closed, thanks to the COVID mitigation policies enforced by those white night tyrants in the CDC and NIH who smeared anyone else who was smarter.
Things were different arriving in Sedona. It’s a place where all the good, wealthy people gather to celebrate their green bonafides. None of them spoke of service on the part of anyone. They drove EV’s even in a desert.
As for Churches, nobody goes there anymore except to view the aging architecture – a reminder of a glorious past. They’ve been marginalized to government so that the latter can better enforce hierarchies of redistribution (in return for votes, of course).
I don’t mean to come across so harsh but your rejoinder didn’t seem to appreciate the reality that the author experienced, even for a few days, which I believe is the new reality more than people know. It’ doesn’t help that the press won’t cover that harsh reality as the result of authoritarian government policy. I generally accept your position that people in “fly-over” country are more hospitable than the elites on the coasts, but it isn’t all roses either.
Bad architecture, soul-sapping, utilitarian and safe automobile design — rules that forbid an attempted re-opening of an incredible 1930’s era amusement park built by and on the property of a DAIRY (!) in Beaverton Oregon due to having wood steps rather than metal, ADA-approved wheelchair ramps (despite not ONE wheelchair bound oldster wanting that destruction) … that is all government-directed and dream-killing. COVID only exposed what was already going on. Maybe time for one of Thomas Jefferson endorsed mini-revolutions.
Great essay. Every journalist ever should do man-in-the street interviews. It’s the only way to stay grounded. A little too nihilistic IMO. I think if the author got out of the cities, and into small towns, he might find a completely different narrative.
One wonders: Is it possible to be too nihilistic when nihilism so easily flourishes? What is this flourishing if not a clue? Ms. Clinton described the people this man interviewed as deplorable. And we know, don’t we, what the modern world has in mind for such people. “There will never be enough water to wash away all the blood” (Nietzsche). What was Ms. Clinton doing when she said what she said? She was laughing. That young woman our writer spoke to last is not safe in the same room with the likes of Ms. Clinton. This, precisely this, is what it has come to.
Except he should be true to his mission of covering the whole country and not quit after only a few days.
This article has little to do with America, and everything to do with the author.
Yes. I think he went on his failed journey to find the American dream to do a few interviews so that he could produce this pale essay. It went from three weeks to what appears to be less than a week to find out that doing the research was just too hard.
Isn’t that sort of what he says?
He could have written “I’m a miserable glass-is-half-empty merchant”, and saved us the travelogue.
Some possible roads that late 20th c. Liberalism did not take – Nazism, Japanese militarism, Soviet communism or Maoism – we must surely be thankful for. But was there (at least in theory) an alternative to the hyper-capitalist, hyper-liberal one we have travelled? When I try to peer imaginatively down a road that I might wish we had taken, the nearest I can get – and do NOT laugh! – is something a bit like The Waltons. The Waltons is when America still loved itself. It was a kind of ‘feminised’ version of the Western. Its storylines had, for example, a modicum of agonising about Social Justice. But they were not so engorged with it that you dared not feel good about your whiteness or maleness or sexual binariness – as would be the case today. It was a place where boy meets girl and starts a family; a place where self-reliance and stoicism was your code even if you did not entirely live up to it. For all its sugar-coated Hollywood fakery it was, at the end of the day, my kind of place…..https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/take-me-to-your-experts
It does look now like it’s the end of the American Empire and the function of this big economy is prerty much uniquely to provide entertainment to the world. Both politics and technology fall under this sector, with the former having a secondary function in providing foreign policy favourable to the country’s arms, energy and security corporations.
Well certainly America is entertaining, but it’s a bit like watching a car crash.
Although this is of course music to the ears of those of us wanting confirmation of our prejudicial views of US society, I suspect that it is an American slant on what one could find in any post-industrial wasteland in at least Europe (they certainly exist in the UK). I do get the impression generally however that the US judicial system, laxer environmental and food standards, unequal healthcare coverage, and lower support from a welfare state are set up to exaggerate the deleterious effects of societal changes.
Everyone has access to healthcare and it’s “free” if you’re willing to wait in line at the ER. It’s health insurance that complicates things, thanks to the regulatory state and fixed payment schedules.
We are a welfare state. It’s one of the main reasons millions want to come here – contributing to the deleterious effects of societal change.
From what I have been told people were poor in the 19th and early 20th century. But people were hopeful. There was a strong sense of community among the working class, they were well organized and surprisingly well read on complex political and economic issues despite not heaving degrees. The US was known to have a free working class press firmly on the side of the people. They understood their own social position and repression and built movements around it. Aiming for radical new alternative worlds was common. There were some big crises but after each of them workers came out stronger. Tomorrow would be a bit better than today, the future for your children a bit brighter, that is a great motivator. The other way around is a recipe for despair.
Living standards greatly improved in the postwar period, producing the middle class. So much so, perhaps, that in the 60s the youth took the search for spirituality and community to a whole new level. In France ’68 almost turned into a literal revolution. Not much later, in the 70s, elites decided it had gone far enough. The middle class had been built on growth and prosperity but also at the expense of the economic elites; never had the West seen so little inequality. This was becoming a problem as economic growth stagnated and wage labor well protected, especially in the face of oil crisis. Elites had to act and push the working class back and so they did. Kevin was right to identify Reagan as one of their most important foot soldiers to sell the necessary policies. It was not just about transferring back wealth to the upper class, although that clearly happened. The crushing of labor, their organizations (e.g. unions), atomization, propaganda, consumerism and impoverishment of education were all part of the program. Thinking about alternative systems has been beaten out of people’s heads with great succes. There Is No Alternative, many people actually believe that now.
From this history it would seem that the economic does play a role and is related to community and spirit. Or at the very least, that the spiritual can be crushed for economic reasons.
_Travels with Charley_ this wasn’t. Next time bring a dog?
He might even get to do another interview… with the dog.
Well, there was only one John Steinbeck. But I do think that dogs can work as excellent openers of conversation, in precisely the same way that announcing that you are from the press does not.
““He made bail somehow, and they let him out, and he’s been on the run and they haven’t been able to find him since, so I’m here.”
Let’s hope that the abuser is not an Unherd reader, otherwise he shall be paying a visit to the homeless shelter in Bristol, Tennessee.
I am not American but have visited many times. My understanding of the American Dream is that if anybody works and works and works .. then that person can get rich. It is not that everybody can get rich by having a job. At all times in American history there have been some very rich and many very poor. The two world wars increased the number of the rich – but for a medium term only.
It would be interesting to see figures of poverty in America, as understood by the European definition of ‘poverty’ – relating to the median wage. I suspect that America would be very poor indeed.
When you define poverty relative to the median income, there will always be a substantial body of “poor,” irrespective of the actual level of income. The intent of such a measure is to emphasize income inequality rather than absolute poverty. Defining poor relative to the income needed to feed, house and clothe a family is a more accurate way to measure poverty.
It won’t be long until the metric if, you aren’t poor if you aren’t starving, is back. That’s the cost of caring.
Do you not understand what median means?
Being a statistician by trade, I’m afraid I do. I bet you studied English Literature as a major.
Clearly you’re not good at it then, you should probably go back to school.
The problem is not spiritual. It’s the pursuit of shareholder value that’s laid America to waste. It could happen here too.
During the cold war the Soviet Union cast a pall over the world. It was not just that commies were evil and killed loads of people, more important in the minds of Western elites where that commies would ´take all our stuff¨.
Therefore, at this time, the elites wanted to prevent trouble and threw a few biscuits to the proles. With the fall of the Soviet Union the pall lifted and Western elites were able to PAAARTY!
Some (but not all) elite partying does create wealth, of a certain type, the US has always been materially rich.
The US elite, in a giant country protected by two huge moats, has always partied harder then European elites who inherited a blood soaked past and were nearer the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Now US elite partying is reaching its height with the furniture being smashed.
“I’ve come to realise I don’t like America, not as a place to live. We have an ugly, selfish, winner-take-all culture, devoid of community, meaning and the majestic, and almost all our policy is built around the notion that individual liberty, with the most stuff at the cheapest price, is the ultimate good.”
This was your opinion all along, I expect, judging from the carefully selected worst possible examples of America and Americans that you chose to write about in the same hackneyed tone of anti-capitalist propaganda the Progressive Left has been using literally now for a century. Yawn.
I disagree. Repost (sorry): Bad architecture, soul-sapping, utilitarian and safe automobile design — rules that forbid an attempted re-opening of an incredible 1930’s era amusement park built by and on the property of a DAIRY (!) in Beaverton Oregon due to having wood steps rather than metal, ADA-approved wheelchair ramps (despite not ONE wheelchair bound oldster wanting that destruction) … that is all government-directed and dream-killing. COVID only exposed what was already going on. Maybe time for one of Thomas Jefferson endorsed mini-revolutions.
Alexis de Toucqueville, early in the American experiment: “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Because freedom can only exist if people are personally good, as in agreeing to a mutual social pact to voluntarily follow the law. Anything else becomes a police state, in some form. Human nature has not changed; laws punish not persuade.
And two-tiered justice is poisonous.
And having already quoted one dead white guy, I’ll refrain from copying in John Adams’ famous quote about whom the US Constitution was intended for. (Hint: “a religious people”. And, pretty sure he did not mean just any-old-religion).
Scranton and Wheeling West Virginia are hardly the two locations I’d begin my hunt for the American dream. Who wrote your itinerary? Why did you choose those places the first time? The Office and opioids come to mind. You’re right. We have terrible food. We add too many chemicals and think big is more. We have terrible laws in that respect compared with the rest of the world. And in my neck of the woods, people don’t pop round for a coffee like they do in the UK and elsewhere. But my sister knocks on doors for a living and while she sees the darkness, it’s filled with far more light. She’s attended church with elderly people and gone hiking with some younger. There is lemonade and conversation. Two days in two towns not known for much of anything positive leads me to believe you set out to prove a apecific theory and you did.
The author clearly cited the fact that the pope he ran into were on the street, not in homes like your sister encounters. That’s a separate lot.
Exactly where do you propose the itinerary? Even San Francisco is literally a piss mess, unless you talk to the Pelosi’s and their circle of insider trading beneficiaries.
The Texas border towns are a lot closer to what the author described. As are the many decaying midwest cities and towns.
I’m not sure that talking to a cherry-picked handful of people constitutes ‘talking to America’ but the writer will do the writer. Despite the author’s belief to the contrary, the country has changed and not necessarily for the better.
Govt has grown out of control and is only accountable to its donors. Crime and dysfunction have been normalized, public education is a self-created punch line, and we are determined to replicate the UK’s issue with unchecked immigration.
Some people pretend that an election will change everything. It won’t. At best, a Trump win may slow down the eventual reckoning. A Harris win will gets us there faster. I’m not sure which is preferable.
The author’s goal is reflected in the people he chose to interview rather than any objective inquiry. Looks to me more like a journey of confirmation of his own dark vision than a meaningful exploration of the health broadly of the American dream.
Life is a dream for some, a nightmare for others, I suspect that is the case anywhere, always was and always will be. If you choose to stay in 45$ motels your odds are pretty good of finding the struggling ones nearby, maybe the author can try the Holiday Inn next time and interview the middle class.
The Holiday Inn is packed with illegal aliens. They’re here more for the handouts than an opportunity to win the American Dream. If they desired the latter they’d vote more like Republicans and you can bet that the border would be controlled and closed if that were the case.
My town doesn’t have a hotel I’d recommend due to their reinvention as refugee camps. A racket all paid at inflated prices with my taxes, of course.
Honestly, the reality is this: Immigrants in the US or Europe can become homeless or rich, but American or European expats in other countries are often, if not always, rich. It almost seems like the American Dream is a projection—it works better outside of America. Anyhow, this author seems to give up 3 weeks of driving in Midwest US…sad to hear? He could have met many more interesting people if he was not so impulsive.
That is because those expats are often people with something like an engineering PhD who are able to compete globally. It is a small group who will go to where the money and facilities are, which is often still the US.
Could have gone to a baseball game and enjoyed a nice hot dog, or stopped at a new brewery and enjoyed some tasty beer we didn’t have too long ago.
A little change from bumming cigarettes at a flophouse. A fuller picture.
Stopping the ambitious journey after only seeing a couple of run down spots and calling it the state of all America is great for his opinion piece but has as much credibility as going to LA and then saying he understands the American west. Article started well but bailing after such a short time deflates all credibility.
Most people usually find what they’re looking for. This writer is no exception. He could have stayed home and wrote this at his desk.
This was a fair column, as far as it goes, which is not very far. The author seems to be looking for meaning in all the squalor he found, when really, he only saw a few people in extremely disadvantaged circumstances. It was poverty porn really.
America’s current problems stem from conscious policies enacted over half a century and more. Americans voted for politicians to enact what they wanted, which was more for me and mine and less for everyone else. It’s the American Way you know.
It’s true that larger American society is probably at an inflection point – Harris and Trump are just bit players.
The vapid worship of celebrities, wealth and influencers is redolent of the Gilded Age, when the worship was simply for wealth and power. That era fell apart, just as this one will.
Chris may not realize it, but he makes the case for restoring Federalism. The US is too big and diverse for central planning and control. What works in NY will probably not work in WV. Let the people find and elect excellent Governors to help correct the course. But in the end the people must get involved and take control. The govt is not going to fix this.
The American Dream is a trite trope. If anything, America suffers from too much dreaming and not enough reality. Generations of young people here have been suckled on the teat of “follow your dreams” to the ridiculous extreme that hordes of them aspire to be the next Taylor Swift or LeBron James instead of something pragmatically realistic. Too few cherish achievable dreams like becoming a really good elementary school teacher who pays close attention to her studies in college because children’s development depends on it; or a mechanic who diagnoses your car problem and fixes it right the first time; or someone who doesn’t think it beneath their dreamy sense of entitlement to simply show up for work on time every day to a job that probably pretty well matches their talent if not their dreams. Too ordinary. Not dreamy enough. Not worthy of me.
Contrary to the prevailing mush, dreaming and hoping beyond one’s abilities unaccompanied by sustained effective effort is usually a formula for failure. The exceptions may be fascinating but don’t disprove the rule. A lifetime in a profession dealing every day at the literal bleeding edge of America’s most down-and-out eloquently informs me firsthand as to how often the catastrophic outcomes of the unfortunate are linked to poor choices they made. Often those choices were inspired and encouraged by a “dream culture” that proliferates narcissistic contempt for the ordinary, aversion to effort or inconvenience, preoccupation with sensate gratification, disregard for others, and obsession with achieving attention. That American Dream we would be better without.