Through our history millions of people have come to what they see as a land of opportunity. The American Dream - the idea that if we work had we can succeed - is one of the key threads that runs through our culture.
How optimistic are you feeling now, though? Does it look as if the US is headed onward and upward to a brighter future? Or do you have an uneasy feeling that the American Dream is on the edge of collapsing into a nightmare?
If you do, and you're looking for reassurance, I'm sorry to say I can't give you any. We're not past the point of no return yet, but there's evidence all around us that points to this country being in a dangerously unstable condition.
We could manage to turn things around - but right now we're heading in the wrong direction.
A House Divided
These states don't feel very united right now. In fact this country might be more divided than it's been at any time since Richmond fell to US troops in 1865. Our politics have become terrifyingly partisan.
Decades ago, in the golden age of the 1950s, the Republicans wanted to build a prosperous by cutting federal taxes and letting people keep more of their money.
The Democrats wanted to build a prosperous nation by using federal law to give people more rights at work.
OK, that's simplifying it a little, but both parties wanted pretty much the same sort of country; they just had different ideas - and, really, not that different - about how to get there.
Look at things now. Some moderate politicians still exist (and they get elected, so some people still like what they're saying) but overall political debate has swerved wildly towards the extremes.
We live in a society that's financed by reckless borrowing, constantly kicking the can down the road and pretending the day the world won't lend us money anymore is never going to arrive.
Along with crazy, extreme ideas comes a level of political hatred that's hard to comprehend. Just a generation ago, we tended to think people who didn't share our political views were wrong but basically well-meaning.
Now, if you don't hold exactly the right set of constantly changing and ever more extreme opinions, you're literally evil. You're heartless, selfish. You're not just someone that voted for the other party; you're the enemy, and you must be destroyed. A society where a large number of people think that way is badly broken. And that's where we are now. READ MORE
