According to a recent Gallup poll, 70% of Americans now believe the American Dream is no longer attainable for the average person. This stark figure represents a seismic shift in national consciousness.
The myth of American exceptionalism is crumbling under the weight of reality.
Economic Collapse
The numbers tell a story of economic devastation wrought by unfettered capitalism. Since 1978, CEO compensation has grown 940%, while typical worker compensation has risen just 12%.
Three men now own more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans combined.
Nearly 40% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency expense, according to the Federal Reserve, while Wall Street posts record profits.
“What we’re witnessing isn’t just inequality — it’s a systematic transfer of wealth from the working class to the ultra-wealthy,” says economist Dr. Thomas Piketty, author of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”
The average American worker needs to work 2.8 jobs to afford rent in most major cities, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Real wages, when adjusted for inflation, have remained essentially stagnant since the 1970s while productivity has increased by over 250%.
Healthcare Crisis
Americans pay 2.5 times more for healthcare than citizens in other developed nations while receiving worse outcomes.
Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in America, with 66.5% of all bankruptcies tied to medical issues, according to the American Journal of Public Health.
“The American healthcare system isn’t broken — it’s functioning exactly as designed: to extract maximum profit while providing minimum care,” notes Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Over 500,000 families go bankrupt each year due to medical bills — a phenomenon that doesn’t exist in any other developed nation.
Environmental Devastation
The United States, with just 4.25% of the world’s population, produces 15% of global carbon emissions.
American corporations have outsourced pollution to developing nations while profiting from the exploitation of their resources and labor.
Since 1970, global wildlife populations have declined by 68%, according to the World Wildlife Fund, with American consumption patterns driving much of this collapse.
“We are witnessing an economic system that treats the planet as nothing more than a business in liquidation,” says environmentalist Bill McKibben.
Chemical companies have dumped over 9.1 billion pounds of toxic chemicals into American waterways since the Clean Water Act was passed.
Educational Decline
Student debt has reached $1.75 trillion, enslaving generations of young Americans to financial institutions.
American 15-year-olds rank 38th in math and 24th in science among developed nations, despite spending more per student than almost any other country.
“Our educational system has been transformed from a public good into a private commodity, designed primarily to train compliant workers rather than critical thinkers,” argues education scholar Henry Giroux.
The average college graduate in 2023 enters the workforce with $37,000 in debt and diminishing prospects of finding employment that will allow them to repay it.
Democratic Erosion
Princeton University researchers concluded in a comprehensive 2014 study that America functions as an oligarchy, not a democracy, with ordinary citizens having virtually no impact on public policy.
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy,” the Princeton study states.
Just three billionaires spent more on the 2020 election cycle than the combined campaign contributions of 4.7 million average Americans.
Voter suppression has systematically disenfranchised millions, with over 17 million voters purged from rolls between 2016 and 2018 alone.
“What we’re seeing isn’t just the failure of a particular administration or party, but the failure of an entire system of governance captured by corporate interests,” notes political scientist Sheldon Wolin in his analysis of what he terms “inverted totalitarianism.”
Imperial Violence
Since World War II, the United States has intervened in or invaded more than 50 countries, overthrowing democratically elected governments and installing regimes favorable to American corporate interests.
The Pentagon’s budget exceeds the combined military spending of the next ten countries combined.
Photographs from Abu Ghraib revealed American military personnel torturing Iraqi prisoners, with victims subjected to electrical shocks, sexual humiliation, and physical abuse — violations of the Geneva Convention that saw limited accountability.
“The United States has become the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned in 1967, a statement that remains tragically relevant.
The School of the Americas (now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, many of whom went on to commit human rights abuses and massacres.
Complicity in Genocide
American taxpayers provide Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid annually, funding what Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have described as an apartheid system.
Since 1948, Palestinian villages and neighborhoods have been systematically destroyed, with over 750,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes during the Nakba, representing the beginning of a 75-year process of ethnic cleansing.
“What we are witnessing is not a conflict between equal parties, but the systematic dispossession of an indigenous population by a settler-colonial state backed by the world’s superpower,” explains historian Ilan Pappé.
The United Nations reports that over 10,000 Palestinian children have been arrested by Israeli forces since 2000, many subjected to physical and psychological abuse.
Recent military operations have seen civilian infrastructure deliberately targeted, with hospitals, schools, and residential buildings reduced to rubble while American-made bombs rain down on densely populated areas.
Mental Health Crisis
America consumes 80% of the world’s opioids despite having only 5% of its population, with pharmaceutical companies profiting billions from addiction.
Suicide rates have increased 33% since 1999, with economic hopelessness cited as a primary factor.
“We’re witnessing not just individual despair but societal breakdown,” explains social psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge, who has documented alarming increases in depression and anxiety among Americans.
More than 100,000 Americans now die annually from drug overdoses — more than from car accidents and gun violence combined.
Media Manipulation
Six corporations control approximately 90% of American media, creating an information ecosystem that prioritizes profit over truth.
“The media’s primary function has shifted from informing citizens to manufacturing consent for policies that benefit corporate interests,” notes media critic Robert McChesney.
News coverage of wars, economic policies, and social issues is systematically filtered through the lens of corporate interests, narrowing the range of acceptable debate.
Americans are exposed to an average of 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements daily, messages designed not just to sell products but to reinforce consumption as the primary means of self-worth and status.
A System in Terminal Decline
“What we are witnessing is not just a series of isolated crises but the predictable outcome of an economic system that prioritizes profit over people and planet,” argues sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein in his world-systems analysis.
Historical data shows that no empire in history has survived the level of inequality currently present in America, with previous civilizations collapsing when wealth disparities reached similar levels.
Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich warns: “The pendulum has swung so far toward big money that our economy, our democracy, and our society are now fundamentally threatened.”
The Breaking Point
How much longer will we tolerate a system that crushes the many for the benefit of the few?
When will Americans finally recognize that the greatest threat to their freedom comes not from foreign terrorists but from the boardrooms of corporate America and the corridors of Washington?
How many more children need to die in senseless school shootings, drone strikes, or from lack of healthcare before we say enough is enough?
How many more generations will we sacrifice on the altar of a failed economic ideology that has delivered nothing but misery for the majority while a tiny elite lives in unimaginable luxury?
The American empire is rotting from within. The only question that remains is whether we will continue to accept this bullshit or finally summon the courage to build something better from its ruins.