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How a Storied Phrase Became a Partisan Battleground


Juan Ciscomani, a Republican car wash to help his Mexican immigrant father pay the bills and is now running for Congress in Arizona, has relied on a simple three-word phrase throughout his campaign — the “American dream.”

For him, the American dream, a nearly 100-year-old idea with meaning and memory, has become something not so much to aspire to but to protect from attack.

He said in an ad that President Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, “destroy the American dream“With” a border crisis, inflation skyrocketed and schools didn’t teach good things about America. “

For decades, politicians have used the phrase “American dream” to describe a promise of economic opportunity and upward mobility and prosperity through hard work. It was such a powerful promise that it attracted immigrants from all over the world, who have continued to fulfill it from generation to generation. Political figures in both parties use the phrase to promote both their own policies and biographies.

Now, a host of Republican candidates and newly elected officials are using the phrase in a different way, making the same promise but arguing in speeches, advertisements and letter that the American dream is dead or in danger, threatened by what they see as rampant crime, unchecked illegal immigration, heavy government regulations, and social policies. free association. Many of these Republicans are people of color – including immigrants and the children of immigrants, whose first popularization in 1931 resonated deeply. sharp.

For politicians of old, the “American dream” was an extremely optimistic rhetorical device, even though it often obscured economic and racial barriers that made it unattainable for many. For today’s Republican candidates, the phrase has taken on a more ominous and pessimistic tone, echoing the party’s leader, former President Donald J. Trump, who said in 2015 that “The American dream is dead”. In the same way that many Trump supporters have tried to make the American flag a symbol of the right, these Republicans have also sought to claim the phrase as their own, reusing it as an adjunct. copy of the slogan Make America Great Again.

Politicians have long warned that the American dream is gone, a note made by former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and other Democrats. What has changed is that some Republicans have now taken the situation more seriously, using the claim that the dream is in jeopardy as a broad offensive, claiming that Democrats turned patriotism into something controversial.

“Both parties used to celebrate the fact that America is a special country – now you only have one celebration,” said Jason Miyares, a Republican and the son of Cuban immigrants. that fact”. The American Dream was part of his successful campaign to become Virginia’s first Latino attorney general.

In Texas, Representative Mayra Flores, a Mexican immigrant who became the state’s first Latina Republican in Congress, run an ad declared, “Democrats are destroying the American dream.” Antonio Swad, an Italian-Lebanon immigrant running for a House seat in a Dallas suburb, said in an ad that he washed dishes at the age of 15 before opening two restaurants, telling voters the dream America does not “come from government help. “

According to AdImpact, the ad-tracking company, TV ads for more than a dozen Republican candidates in House and Senate campaigns – more than half of them people of color – cite this phrase. Some other hopefuls, many of them Latinafrequently quoted words in social media posts, digital ads, campaign materials, and speeches.

“In Congress, I will fight to defend the American dream,” said Yesli Vega, a former police officer who is the daughter of civil war refugees from El Salvador and is running for a House seat in Virginia. know on Twitter.

The “American Dream” was the dominant theme of two Republican-winning campaigns in Virginia last year: the race by Winsome Earle-Sears, a Jamaican-born former Marine who is now a woman. first black governor to hold the post of governor, and Mr. Miyares, attorney general.

“On the campaign trail, I used to say, if your family comes to this country looking for hope, there’s a good chance your family is a lot like mine, and that would be the greatest honor. in my life to be your attorney general. ,” said Mr. Miyares.

Republicans rely on this phrase to show the extent to which the party is diversifying its ranks and recruiting candidates with powerful underlying stories. But historians and other scholars warn that some Republicans are distorting a defining American idea and turning it into an exclusionary political message.

“Republicans are using it as a dog whistle,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “They’re saying here’s the potential of what you can have, if we can rule out others ‘stealing it’ from you.”

Republicans argue that their references to the “American dream” promote exclusion and say they are using the phrase the same way politicians have used it for decades – to signal hope and opportunity. “I think the left is much more pessimistic than the Republicans about the American dream,” said Representative Yvette Herrell, a New Mexico Republican. Who is Cherokee? and third Native American woman was elected to Parliament.

But the latest iteration of this dream has become a rhetoric for Republican policy positions.

Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican lawmaker in Colorado running in the Hot House race, embraces the American dream as the subject of her personal story. Ms. Kirkmeyer grew up on a dairy farm, the sixth of seven children in a family that frequently struggled. She made money for college by raising and selling a herd of eight dairy cows, crossbreeds, and hybrid calves.

Kirkmeyer says the American dream is not only about economic opportunity but also freedom, connecting rhetoric with Republican opposition to Covid-related mask mandates. “I don’t see missions as part of the American dream,” she said. “People feel it’s an invasion of their personal rights and dreams.”

The earliest mention of the phrase “American Dream” appears to be in a 1930 advertisement for $13.50 discounted spring beds from an American mattress company.

However, historians and economists credit writer James Truslow Adams for popularizing the phrase in his best-selling book published a year later in 1931, “The American Epic”. His definition of the Depression is “a dream of a land where everyone’s life will be better, richer, and fuller”. For Mr. Adams, it is part of a liberal vision, in which government is seen as the force against big business. The symbol of his American dream at the time was the Library of Congress.

For generations to come, Mr. Adams’ phrase was defined by an image – a house with a white fence – as presidents, companies and popular culture promoted home ownership. But with the opportunity to own a home decreasing after the economic crisis of 2008, Democrats and Republicans once again sought to redefine it. Much of the phrase’s progressive history is now lost, as Republicans see big government as the enemy.

“It’s been a real change,” said Sarah Churchwell, author of the 2018 book, “Behold, America: The Entangled History of “America First” and “The American Dream.” “

The origins of this more conservative vision of the American dream can be traced back to Ronald Reagan, who referred to the phrase frequently and also used it in appeals to Latino voters, celebrating family, religion and oppose the government. It was a strategy later adopted by George W. Bush.

“It combines conservative values ​​with economic opportunity: ‘We recognize you for your contributions to America, and we’ll give you a chance to rise to the top if you’re willing to work’ , said Lionel Sosa, a retired communications consultant in San Antonio, a Republican who created ads for Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush.

Republicans still use the American dream the way Reagan and Bush did, emphasizing a strong work ethic, Christian values, and entrepreneurialism. But many Hispanic Republicans now add a tougher side – insisting that they came to the country legally, decrying “open borders” and calling for the completion of the US-Mexico border wall. .

“In all the time we worked on it, we didn’t say anything about building a wall,” Sosa said of the previous message aimed at the Hispanic Republican Party. “There’s no message that you have to be here legally or that if you’re not here legally, we don’t want you here.”

The politicization of the phrase appears as learn shows that the American public has become more pessimistic about achieving the American dream. Historians say that in recent years, Republicans have used the phrase much more often than Democrats in advertisements and speeches. While more than a dozen Republican candidates around the country cited the phrase in their TV ads this midterm, only four Democratic candidates have done so, according to AdImpact.

One of the Democratic candidates who drew on the theme of his ad was Shri Thanedar, an Indian-American state legislator in Michigan and the Democratic candidate for a House seat. “We have ceded that platform to Republicans and other corporate politicians, alluding to the reluctance of some Democrats to emphasize the phrase,” Thanedar said.

Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat facing Herrell in New Mexico in the fall, also embraced the phrase. He told supporters that his late grandfather Javier Bañuelos, who taught himself how to fix broken televisions using old manuals and eventually opened his own repair shop – enabled him to run for Congress. The American dream is not about buying a home, but about making sure that the economic ladder “is there for everyone and everyone can climb it with you,” he said.

However, even Democrats find themselves talking about the dream as pessimistically as Republicans. Just as Republicans blame Democrats for destroying the American dream, so Democrats believe the fault lies with Republicans. They say Republicans are making it harder to hack the social safety net and block efforts to raise the minimum wage, and that they have agreed to choose symbols of patriotism – including those words like patriotism – and turn them into partisan weapons.

“That American dream,” Mr. Vasquez said, “is becoming an illusion.”



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