Is the "American dream" still applicable today?

not as long as people say that the USA is a "consumer driven" economy as if that was actually a good thing...

...a friend and I went for a weekend ride a few weeks back... we stopped to rest at a park overlooking the Pacific Ocean and met some other riders...

...one guy was a 44-year old longshoreman from a neighborhood near the Port of LA...it turned out he and my friend had a lot in common so we talked for quite some times...

...he talked about how he was hoping to get his young son into the ILWU someday because, as he put it, the schools in LA are total crap... I told him that, on a longshoreman's salary, surely he could move to another suburb with better schools..

"Oh, these rich folks would never accept people like me," he said. "I don't care, but I'm not about to let my kids be treated like **** by a bunch of spoiled brats."

So instead this man..... who makes $140,000 a year....more than my father made when he moved my family to an affluent section of LA so that we could be in a better school district... rides a $36,000 motorcycle... his kids wear $200 high tops and all have iPhones, iPads and laptops...has two 60-inch TVs and all the premium HBO channels...

He makes sure they have every material want met.. but he doesn't mind that they are in a school district where barely 60% of kids graduate....where over 80% of males will be in a gang by the time they are 15...

..does that sound like a "dreamer" to you........ or a well-intentioned man who lives only for the here and now?

Applicable as in do people still believe in it?

Of course there will always be those who do, despite the evidence that you've got a better chance of upward mobility in Europe than America.

But "pie in the sky" & morality tales have always been promoted by the elite for what should be obvious reasons.

Definitely not. America has turned into the branch of Europe we used to be, and then again that's unfair to them seeing as they still have the guts to break away from governments that don't represent them. We have a ruling class, and no average Joe has any chance of ever getting anywhere politically. The ideas of freedom and liberty being more important than life itself have clearly been removed from every fabric of our society, as the government restricts everything from what we can own, to what we can put in our bodies. If you try to start your own business, the government will want some of that too, while offering tax cuts to billionaires and their businesses. There really is nothing American about America anymore.

Yes, the "American dream" is still applicable for illegals.

Yes but not for White Americans, they live the American nightmare.

Yes. Contrary to what Bernie Sanders and other socialists want you to believe, the American dream is still alive. It keeps dying with everyone who says "Feel the Bern" and "I'm with Her", but it's still alive.

Americans today don't know how privileged they are. Theirs is the only developed country in the world where you can buy large houses cheaply, where there are plentiful well paid jobs in industry, where crime is taken seriously, where cars are spacious and comfortable, where you can legally defend yourself in the street, and where you can afford to eat hot dogs and hamburgers everyday

Define it. What is the American dream? is it still what it was 50 years ago?

No, but then it never was applicable. I don't even think anyone has a clear sense of what that phrase might mean, anyway.

Nope