Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream

Smith criticizes the American tendency to glorify political leaders, looking to them to save and to implement our best ideals. Regardless of political ideology or affiliation, Smith is leery of the effects this has on our ability to act collectively for the greater public good. When referencing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s fame, for instance, he cautions, “Our preoccupation cannot be with how to make Ocasio-Cortez president but with how we fill the halls of power with all the Ocasio-Cortezes waiting in the wings” (155). When Smith explains Trump supporters’ admiration for Donald Trump, he argues that Trump was able to shore “up the support of those who wanted it made clear: this country belongs to them. Trump promised to deliver it” (29). Smith is arguing that real change happens when systems are changed, not when this or that political candidate is elected. What happens when people put too much faith in their political heroes, Smith argues, is that “you are not yourself implicated in the worst of this presidency, and therefore cannot be tasked with doing much else to fend off the atrocities” (22), as if to say voting for the other person is enough in doing one’s part. Smith instead proposes political revolution, which involves a collective call to action, in order to forge a society in which conditions and opportunities are in fact equal. By outsourcing the responsibility of social change to a political figure, this change cannot happen. Despite the political rifts in the United States, which have deeply divided the nation, he reminds the reader that “We are—through force, choice, or happenstance—Americans, and as such we share something. Where we often disagree is on what that something is and its significance” (37). Smith believes that positive, long-lasting change is possible, but this possibility exists when people, not necessarily politicians, unite around a common purpose.

As Smith recasts the American Dream as nothing but myth, so too does he recast the American democracy as the empty promises of an empire. In his view, the United States suffers from an identity crisis, which makes real progress impossible to achieve, as evidenced in this passage: “America has never been a democratic nation in any way other than its own proclamation as such. It fails even by its own flimsy standards of democracy, which don’t account for any aspect of life outside of the voting booth” (43). This, Smith argues, is due to the fact that as “Americans we are eager, ravenous even, to believe the most flattering narratives about ourselves” (36). American history, by extension, is a constant retelling and revising of the actual truth. Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance, is a wise, apolitical sage, as opposed to an advocate for vast yet specific civil rights, who was assassinated for his beliefs, which increasingly moved towards the inevitable truth that systemic change was the only possibility for lasting change. As Smith puts it, Dr. King “moved from laudatory to audaciously skeptical” (38). America’s insistence on policing tactics as a social necessity also contribute to the illusion that America operates as a democracy for all. What may appear to be a democracy to some is a life of constant harassment and oppression for others. According to Smith, this is not a contemporary epiphany, but a historical reality, as he writes: “It would be a tremendous shame for the wealthiest nation in human history to admit that the wealth it has built came at a dreadful cost to the majority of people who live here. It would reveal the lie of the whole system” (73). Yet Smith does not simply expose the problem without acknowledging that there is the possibility for change. In order to do this, however, Smith calls for honesty and self-reflection about how each of us fit into the American story.

Smith explicitly states the role of the police as an oppressive force in the United States, arguing that their purpose is predominantly linked to the constant patrolling and harassing of Black and Brown people. Smith argues for the abolishment of police altogether. Reforming a system that is oppressive by nature will accomplish nothing. As Smith puts it, “I am incensed by the delusion, so prevalent among the country’s supposedly serious thinkers, that tinkering around the edges of an inherently oppressive institution will lead to freedom” (93). Smith believes in using clear, straightforward language in his view of what should happen with the police forces around the country, regardless of whether the policing is progressive or authoritarian: “policing is policing no matter what adjective you put in front of it” (90). For Smith, there have been no recognizable, long-term benefits for Black and Brown people when it comes to the police as an institution. He argues, “the police are the enemies of black people, Latinx people, trans people, and poor people. Is it our duty to revere them, even as their presence conflicts with our freedom? After Ferguson? After Baltimore” (91)? There is no reform possible that can undo the damage of the police upon these communities, other than the ultimate reform of complete abolishment.