Word comes to me of the ultimate bastardization of the phrase “living the American Dream.”
It was uttered by a man with no visible means of support – as in no job. But said man has a mate, a couple of kids and a dog.
He resides in a house in the suburbs, has multiple takeout food deliveries daily, and generally lives what used to be considered a middle class existence, but without the need to put in that pesky 40-hour work week.
It used to be the American Dream meant opportunity to move up the socioeconomic ladder by virtue of hard work and development of one’s skills. The key word was opportunity, not a guarantee of outcome enabled by handouts designed to make the dream come true on the tab of taxpayers.
An individual’s eventual success, or failure, rested squarely on the shoulders of that individual.
Hard work customarily was rewarded with improvement in standard of living. Now, such improvements are provided through all manner of governmental largess.
Statistical and anecdotal evidence continues to pour in that life on the dole never has been more popular.
News items and postings on social media tell the stories of job vacancies going unfilled due to a lack of interested workers.
Just today it was announced that more than 15 million Americans continue to be on some sort of government dole, ostensibly to help them financially with the economic decline fostered by the government but blamed on COVID-19.
This occurs against a backdrop of record job openings. But those jobs are not interesting to people getting traditional unemployment along with supplemental benefits.
At least 20 states are planning to cut off the flow of those excess pandemic relief handouts, meaning that in a month or so, some of these idlers are going to have a come-to-Jesus moment regarding the need to work.
I’m not sure my example of the man living the American Dream (perhaps a welfare lifer) will fall into that category. But many others will.
And you wonder what the reaction will be? The socialists among the Democratic party likely are praying to their Marx/Lenin/Mao gods that the layabouts take to the streets to demand the government nanny state put them back on the dole.
This will be leveraged by the lamestream media into a steady drumbeat of “poor me” stories from individuals and heads of families who opted for the non-working lifestyle and now are lamenting their dire financial straits.
We will be asked how can a person be expected to exist in 2021 without the latest smart phone and an unlimited data plan; food, housing and medical care; tattoos; state-of-the-art gaming systems; and a smart television the size of the average drive-in movie screen, all provided at no cost to them?
Joe Biden’s handlers will tell the feeble one that dramatic action is needed, and another trillion or so will be added to the national debt with one labored scrawl on some sort of “emergency” bailout legislation.
That’s the American Dream these days. It will become the American Nightmare if and when producers decide to stop going to work and paying taxes, thereby cutting the legs out from under the government and its ability to fund all its giveaway programs.
Sam Ross Jr's site 