Politics of pessimism: Why neither party is selling the American dream
When J.D. Vance announced his run for Senate in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, last July, he vowed to fight in Washington on behalf of Ohioans who “look to the future more with frustration and fear than with hope and optimism.”
A Marine turned venture capitalist, whose bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” detailed his scrappy Appalachian upbringing, Mr. Vance talked about an American dream that’s become out of reach for most. He spent much of the speech in the trenches of resentment, excoriating the elites who “have plundered this country.”
“They seem to want to take our love of country away from us,” he said.
Such rhetoric has become standard fare in an era of partisan strife in which both sides seem drawn to prophecies of decline. The doom and gloom is framed differently by Democrats and Republicans, but they share certain touchstones, including a loss of faith in upward social mobility and a precarious vision of the future – particularly if the other side is in charge.
On the left, the racist sins of the past and stubborn persistence of structural inequities, coupled with worries of climate catastrophe to come, cast a dark shadow. On the right, rapid demographic and cultural change and the waning influence of Judeo-Christian values has led to a lost “American” identity. Both sides say
