Almost There... And Presidents and Stuff

We have all indeed had a lot of the American Dream, but let’s finish the semester strong!

My focus for my paper is around presidents. I found this focus in chapter 3 of American Dream in the 21^st Century, “The Presidency and the Making of the American Dream” by John K. White. This chapter highlighted the importance of the President in fueling the American Dream.

All in all, I have concluded that Americans look to the president to embody the American Dream, reaffirm the American Dream, and pursue policy which expands the scope of the American Dream.

First, presidents should embody the American Dream. A good example of this is Obama. Raised without a father, Obama made it into college and became the President of the United States. It’s certainly a testament to the American Dream. His story and background gave him great popularity amongst non-white voters, gaining 67% of Hispanic votes, 62% of Asians, and 66% of the remaining non-white vote (55). I intend to use an article titled “Living the Dream: Barack Obama and Blacks’ Changing Perceptions of the American Dream,” published in the Social Science Quarterly (2012), Christopher Timothy Stout of Wellesley College and Danvy Le of University of California Irvine, discusses the election of Barack Obama’s effect of African American perception of the American Dream. It argues that the election of Obama has created a surge in faith in the American Dream in the African American community. The authors develop this claim by comparing polling results from African Americans opinion on the American Dream before and after the election of Obama. The polls show a large increase in African American faith in the American Dream after Obama’s election, which would be most likely due to the election of Obama.

Second, presidents should reaffirm the American Dream. This is seen in political speeches, where any candidate for president will mention the American Dream at some point. “The use of imagery in the campaign speeches of Barack Hussein Obama and John McCain during the 2008 US Presidential Election” is an article from Leadership & Organization Development Journal which counts the number of times which Obama and McCain mentioned the “American Dream” in the 2008 election. This demonstrates its rhetorical power in politics

Finally, I am showing that presidents are expected to expand the scope of the American Dream. I am using Lindon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan to demonstrate this. In the article “LBJ, Reagan, and the American Dream: Competing Visions of Liberty,” published in Presidential Studies Quarterly (2014), political science professor at Baylor University Martin J. Medhurst examines the rhetoric surrounding the American Dream used by President Lyndon B. Johnson and President Ronald Reagan. It argues that Johnson advocated for positive liberty, while Reagan advocated for negative liberty. LBJ sought to create government programs while Reagan sought to tear down government programs. They both were trying to ensure liberty and create equal opportunity. LBJ saw liberty as something which the government needed to ensure, so he created more government. Reagan saw liberty as God-given and as being infringed on by government, so he reduced the government. Both had the goal of expanding liberty; they just had different ideas of what liberty meant. 

And last blog, we out.