Amerigo: The Search for the American Dream

(gentle bright music) - The energy, the faith, the devotion.

- To those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared.

- You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman.

You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or Japanese.

But anyone from any corner of the earth can come to live in America and become an American.

- [David] America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, but America is more than a name.

It's both a place, a vast place from sea to shining sea, but it's also an idea, a notion that through hard work, anyone of any background might achieve a better life.

It's prosperity, it's hope, and its aspiration.

- [John] Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

- [David] I've never been as brave as the explorers in the 1400s like Amerigo Vespucci.

But I have been given the opportunity to live an incredibly interesting and fortuitous life, what many would call the American dream.

(bright upbeat music) - [Martin] My four little children one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I have a dream.

- My grandfather was a share cropper.

My dad was a roofer, and I'm Captain America.

- [Neil] One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

- This, this is the American dream.

- [Barack] I believe we can keep the promise of our family.

The idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, or what you look like... - [Martin] Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Glory, hallelujah.

Glory, hallelujah.

(upbeat music continues) (projector reel whirring) (gentle bright music) (bright upbeat music) - [David] My name is David McCourt.

Where is the American dream?

I've been looking for it.

The dream that promised that hard work would be enough.

What happens when hard work simply isn't enough anymore?

Over two years, I crossed this country, east to west, north to south, and I listened to the voices of hundreds and hundreds of everyday working Americans.

Families and farmers, teachers and truck drivers, students and service workers.

What I heard was honest.

- It's available to you and everybody else.

Take advantage of it, it's there.

- [David] What I heard was raw.

- Being able to get up and not fear going outside without being shot.

- [David] And what I heard was true.

- Part of the American dream is knowing that you can party if you want to.

You want a beer at six o'clock in the morning, Beastie Boys fought for your right to do that.

- [David] Some of the people I spoke to were experts, but most were everyday working Americans.

This is not just a film about the American dream, this is a film about America itself.

It's about who we are and who we were, and who we are becoming.

And whether that dream still has the power to unite us all.

- If you're growing into being a titan of industry and more and more people are suffering, you're not growing, you're hoarding.

- [David] And it all began with a simple question.

(machine buzzing) - What is the American dream?

- Let me think, the American dream... - Man, I'm still trying to figure that one out, seems like it's a moving target.

- It's being happy.

- Owning your own house.

- Have the house with the white picket fence.

- Big house, white picket fence.

- The white picket fence.

- The white picket fences.

- A white picket fence, you know?

Husband and wife, two kids, a dog.

- I don't wanna say white picket fence, but that seems to be what comes to mind.

- I think the American dream is very much a concept, it's an idea, it's an ideal and it can be true anywhere.

- The American dream is very much inside a person.

It's not outward, you can't touch it.

1,000 dreams That would awake me - Whatever that personal goal is for you, I think that's the American dream.

- Enjoying a sense of purpose.

- To be joyful in your community, to be able to feel productive.

- And have contributed to the society.

- I don't care who you are, money does make you happy if you have it.

- It's not about the money, it's what you do with the money and who you help out and your family and bringing up people.

- I think the American dream is that you might be able to have your kids do better than you did.

- Everyone is entitled to have what they feel is the American dream.

I may not have been born into a wealthy family, but a wealthy family should come from me.

- I think it's (....) - I feel like it's a joke or something that mocks us.

- I feel like the American dream now in my generation is different.

- I don't think it's as easily accessible or economical to make those achievements anymore.

- Right now, I feel like it's an American nightmare.

- There's no one that really wants to look out for one another nowadays.

- The American dream died when I was a child.

- The idea is you come from a far off land, come to the land of milk and honey, and you can start a life for yourself.

You can own a home, you can raise a family, you can make a business.

I think 100 years ago, all those things were possible.

Not only were they possible, they were probable.

- I don't see that there is a lot of potential for anybody but the enormously wealthy to actually realize their dream now.

- You have to be a certain type of person to even have access to the dream at this point.

- I don't know, it seemed like we were going up.

And now it's kind of... - It was sold to us, we bought into it, but then it never delivered.

(bright stirring music) (birds chirping) - This is grandpa and grandma's house.

He bought this house in 1941.

Love this house.

My mother got married from this house.

Like one and a half bedrooms, one bathroom, nine of us in the house with one bathroom.

My father and grandfather, they birthed three generations of the American dream out of here.

- But it doesn't matter how hard you work, we don't make any livable wages nowadays.

And just like the thought of, I can't fathom buying a house, no.

- [David] My grandfather and my grandmother, 16, 18 years old, came over from Ireland with everything they owned in a suitcase.

My grandfather was a street car driver and then a janitor at the tennis and racket club.

- I'm a school bus driver.

I work for the San Bernardino Unified School District.

- They seem to forget that this country was built on labor.

And the most important product that we produce is the people.

- There was this sense of not only hard work, but there was also this sense of, you have to do it yourself.

- A great example is like Vegas.

I mean, the casino is the one that runs the whole house and we're just the players, you know?

And so, who wins?

They do.

- [David] My grandfather, on a janitor's salary, he can afford his own house.

- The idea of having a home, of somewhere you belong and somewhere that you can't be moved from, is in corridor our sense of safety and self.

- He used to bring his chair out right here to read the paper.

(gentle bright music) - The first thing they look at is, if you have good credit to buy a house.

And what does it matter if we make enough money and we can pay some with cash?

Nope, they wanna have it on credit, on loan.

If you come in with cash, they're like calling the police.

- He grew his own fruit and vegetables here, so he stuck his hands in the dirt.

If we had string beans on Thanksgiving, they came from this garden.

If we had potatoes at Christmas, it came from this garden.

- Way back when, it used to be if you're a hardworking American, you can make your dreams come true.

Whatever that dream is, as long as you work hard, you can achieve it here in America.

It was what set us apart from other countries.

- This is the house that we all grew up in.

Nine of us lived in this house.

The house is twice as big as it was when we grew up in it, 'cause they added to the back of it.

We broke so many windows in this house.

We had a baseball right through the bay jacks windows.

All seven brothers and sisters, all pursued the American dream and they all get launched right from here.

- Politicians always say every American should be able to achieve the American dream of owning a home.

- Now, in order to get that dream, you have to make a lot more money.

And there's a lot more roadblocks I feel like in the way.

- [David] I planted that tree with my father.

God, look how big it's gotten.

- The idea of the dream has improved, but the reality of making it happen has not.

It's gone quite downhill, I would say.

- Tonight, new reporting on why the American dream feels increasingly out of reach.

Home prices have skyrocketed for years.

And the latest report from the National Association of Realtors shows the share of first time home buyers has dropped to 21%, a record low.

- I have no prospects of owning a home, at least not in the near future, and I'm in my 30s.

- You know, I feel like the American dreams are coming a little harder for most younger people.

Because, you know, back in the days, most people in their 30s, my age, would have a house.

But now it's just, the American dream is not so simple anymore.

It's just, everything's so expensive.

- So nine of us lived there and grandma and grandpa lived here.

And as a janitor and my father as a contractor, they were able to afford a fabulous middle class life.

(gentle bright music) (birds chirping) - I think owning a home these days feels nearly impossible.

I've been on my own since I was 18 years old.

I'm 35 now and I've never owned a home in my life.

- It used to be much more affordable to be able to even think about owning your own home.

And now, people can barely even afford to live alone, let alone afford a mortgage.

And I think that that has been really detrimental to people building families.

- I don't think that I'll be able to afford a house in my lifetime.

- I think the economic factor is real, in that things are getting more expensive and it's getting harder for our communities to take care of each other.

- You know, if you're gonna buy a house, if you're gonna support a family, at minimum it's got to be double income.

- Buying a home for that kind of level of income is not only a dream, but it's impossible.

You know, I think even being able to rent a house.

- People don't necessarily want or need to have their own home, but just a quality piece of real estate, whether that's renting or buying.

- That's a huge part of the American dream, or at least what it used to be.

And for us, it seems so unattainable now.

I think from an outside perspective, we're chasing something that can never be had.

- I'm at a university where we're trying to hire professors.

The cost of living has gone up, has doubled in the time I've been there, salaries don't.

For college professors, buying a house is priced out.

I really don't know how a custodian lives in America today.

- You know, the search in this documentary is all about those 20 million service workers like my grandfather.

- My name is Tom Spencer.

I was a bus driver for 12 years in Boston.

- The question is, can they afford a house?

Can they afford the life that my grandfather and my father had?

- Home ownership has become a lot harder.

It's really out of my reach right now.

- If they have to worry every time they have a kid that has a birthday, that they can't buy a gift and make a house payment.

- I wanna buy something for the family, I can't do the payment for the house because it's too much money.

- Hopefully I can retire with some dignity, I think that's what my dream is.

- That's the search, can today's service workers live the same life that my grandfather lived?

(groovy upbeat music) - It has always meant so much, that statue, you know, that beacon in the water, the words inscribed on her.

The idea that this was a place you could come, no matter how you came, to live a life where your work mattered, your creativity mattered, where you mattered.

- It's interesting, when you look at surveys about the American dream, the people who most fervently believe in it are first generation immigrants and multimillionaires.

The likelihood of a first generation immigrant doing better than his or her parents is the same today as it was 100 years ago.

So there still is very much this idea of the American dream for people who come to this country who start with almost nothing and wanna get ahead.

- When you say the American dream, I think of immediately my dad and him coming to the US from Lebanon in the civil war.

And how he came with nothing, and he worked so hard for many years to make it in the US.

And I feel like America's the only place where you can really do that.

- I moved to the States just to study English, and I decided to stay because I just felt finally like I'm fitting in.

Today's a special day because I'm just coming back from getting my citizenship.

(bright upbeat music) - [David] America was mostly built by people who came from somewhere else, people like my grandfather.

From the coal mines to the corner stores, wave after wave of calloused hands arrived with little more than hope and a dream.

They didn't just chase the American dream, they mixed the cement and laid its bricks.

Today, new immigrants still build our homes, care for our children, and pick the food that feeds us.

They start new businesses at twice the national rate.

They believe in America, sometimes more than America believes in them.

(projector reel whirring) (horses neighing) - I was actually born in Deadwood, South Dakota, but I grew up on a ranch on the edge of Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.

All of my relatives on the reservation were not able to realize that dream.

For them, the American dream was only available to white people.

They had terrible healthcare, very little education, very bad nutrition.

They were locked up on land that was not suitable to farming and asked to farm.

And still to this day, the American dream has not come their way.

(upbeat stirring music) - The American project, experiment, country, is based on so much fragile relationships between all the Native nations and with the land, and with bringing Black people over from Africa and America as this shining thing up here.

But the structure that it's actually constructed on is so broken and fragile and unacknowledged.

- Here in this country, children were getting killed for speaking their Native tongue.

And their dads basically were overseas, the same language, saving this country.

- Civilizations rose and fell and dispersed before Europeans ever set foot.

You know, we have places like Cahokia which was, at its peak, larger than London in the year like 1100.

- Unless you're one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else.

Somebody brought you.

- We were always taught in school about the great American melting pot.

That everyone comes here and we all become one in order to achieve a common goal.

And I wish that I could still believe in that today.

- This country was supposed to be the golden ticket for families that needed to get out of wherever they were.

And it's gone now.

- No, for me, the American dream is, it's been everything to me and my family.

I'm an immigrant, you know?

This country was built on the back of immigrants.

- My father brought me and my brothers to this country for a better life, looking for a better life.

And I like to think that I do have a better life thanks to him.

Because we are illegal immigrants, we get nothing from the government.

When people say that we get benefits and this and that, no we don't, we really don't.

My father paid taxes for 25 years, not once did he get a single cent from the government even though he had three children in school.

We didn't get none of the SNAP benefits or anything like that.

My father just literally did everything on his own.

We don't ask for much, I feel.

We just want a chance to create what we couldn't create in our own countries.

- My dad, he came here from Mexico when he was just 15.

My mom came from a lower income community and they both started a business and found success.

And now they have me and my two other sisters.

You know, we're all college educated and we're doing good for ourselves.

- On one hand, you have the Ellis Island, everyone's welcome, you know, American Dream.

On the other hand, you have this Gordon Gecko, Wall Street, money, greed, kind of capitalism version.

The two coexisting, me, I don't believe that can happen.

- A company has four pieces, right?

You have the shareholders, the workers, the customers, and the community.

The problem is average net profit of corporate America.

So after you pay your workers, you pay your bills, you pay, everything- - Yeah.

- It's between five and 6%.

Today, it's between 12 and 15%.

The problem is, the profit has doubled or tripled, they're not lowering prices to customers.

- Yeah.

- [David] They're not giving back to the community.

And they haven't raised the workers share that same amount.

- Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

You turn your back I guess you don't care - The American dream in the sense that anybody can move up in some topic, economic class or become president of the United States, wherever it may be, you know, that is a dream.

The social mobility has always been relatively good in this country, but there are limitations to the American dream.

Too much is never enough Do you really need that much - The American dream is based in part on a market system, and the rule of law and equality of opportunity and all of that.

But a market system is going to leave a lot of people behind.

- Well, it is survival of the fittest.

You have the work for everything that you have and you have to work to make your life better.

- Survive.

- Survive.

- Survive.

- Trying to survive.

- Survive.

- Staying alive and making it out, it's survival.

- Thousands of people are expected to lose their health insurance once Medicaid cuts go into effect.

- And it also comes as Congress slashes funding of healthcare programs that help many people with disabilities and lower income people.

(traffic buzzing) (birds chirping) - I was diagnosed with colon cancer stage four, three years ago in November, three years ago.

I was told at that time, I had two years to live.

That was three years ago.

My doctor told me it looked like I had had my case for about 10 years, due to the size of my tumor.

I'm lucky because as a teacher, I was a teacher in the district, so when I was diagnosed, I had Blue Cross Blue Shield.

I had some insurance.

And that has been significant to me and my family, (gentle stirring music) because I've certainly seen... I had a cousin, who was diagnosed with the same thing as I did, who passed.

I'm not sure that had they had access to better healthcare, that they'd be alive.

I know that part of the reason why I'm alive right now is 'cause I've had access to the healthcare.

- Clearly, I want my husband to live as long as he can.

Going through the system, it really seems like a big business.

I don't feel like they have his best interest at heart.

Every time he goes to an appointment with his oncologist, it tears him down mentally.

And there's no hope.

- It will come down to about money, and how somebody's life becomes worth saying no to this much in medical debt.

But, yeah, da-da.

It's kind of scary and I know it eats up people, and I know it makes people sick.

- 100% believe they want people to be sick.

They want to treat the symptoms and just treat 'em enough that you keep coming back, you know?

Look at the rate of big pharma, how much money they make, insurance agents, how much money they make.

Like, it's everybody's in everybody else's back pocket and we are the ones paying the price.

- I'm from Houston, Texas originally, but living in currently and Lawrence, Kansas.

I'm pretty happy with where I'm at, considering everything I've been through.

My dad became addicted to crack cocaine right around '97, which would've made me 14.

I was not really aware.

He was pretty functional.

At some point in the next couple years, I was homeless, living in my car with two jobs.

You know, I have the freedom to do whatever I want, which I feel like is the American dream, right?

- You'll often find Americans expressing the view that if somebody's homeless or somebody falls on hard times, it's largely their fault.

Whereas it's seen very differently I think in Europe and particularly in Ireland, where it's seen as a broader social failure.

And that somebody may have fallen on hard times, but the safety net and the ladder wasn't there to allow them to get back to a better place.

- Just remember this Mr.

Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.

Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?

- The American dream was a promise for an opportunity.

If you work hard, if you are honest, and if you contribute to your community, you can make it.

But some people are working hard, contributing to the community, and they're honest, and they still struggle.

- Yeah.

(upbeat music) (crowd screaming) The American dream is killing me - If I were writing about the American dream, I would say that it's kind of got an undercurrent of never enough.

You never hear somebody say, "You know how much money I have?

I have enough."

- It was much easier for us even, you know, 30 years ago, - A $400 unexpected medical bill causes bankruptcy in America for most Americans.

- I mean, when we were growing and stuff back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, I mean, the dream was there.

Is it here?

Now, I don't know.

It can be.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It can be, but- - I think so too.

- They're gonna have to work harder.

- It used to be, you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

Unchecked freedoms just ruined it I guess.

The rich have gotten richer and the middle class has evaporated.

- I don't think anyone's telling adults that you can be whatever you want anymore.

The American dream is killing me - Exposing how polarized this nation is right now, are we more divided than we've ever been recently?

(train whirring) - I think a lot of it's because the news, if you watch Fox News and you watch the right wing news or you watch the left wing news, the two are completely different countries.

There's two different stories.

- I respect other people's opinions, backgrounds, point of view, which should be a lively conversation, a civilized conversation.

That is not the case.

It's a very polarizing conversation.

You know, I've heard a family splitting up because of one side voting for the other.

You know, it shouldn't be that way, but it is.

- It's just horrifying and it's in my own family as well.

And we've gotten so that we just can't talk about it, we can't bring it up, in order to even be together in the same room.

All over, all over so easy to see People everywhere just wanna be free I can't understand, it's so simple - I do think the internet has left us more polarized and more divided than ever.

We know that the algorithms that drive the internet, they thrive on difference.

They thrive on polarization.

So as wild and extreme as you can get on your website of people disagreeing will drive the advertising dollars that will be needed to sustain it.

And it's become a beast, a beast we can't control anymore.

It seems to me You've got that something individually - We do not allow ourselves to understand that there are more than one answer right or wrong.

And that everybody can have their own view.

And now we seem to label each other by our view, and we just can't fathom that somebody else has a different view and that they have to be wrong and we have to be right.

And I think social media is part of this to blame.

- I'd say most people my age are pretty addicted to social media and they probably spend several hours a day on it, just looking at mindless content, nothing that's gonna improve their life.

- The internet with cell phones, social media has ruined communication.

People don't talk to each other anymore, they don't write letters.

They do these texts which are devoid of emotion.

It's taken humanity out of communication.

(groovy upbeat music) - The generations that came after me, including my own son, what's your guys' vision of the future?

Does it feel bleak to you?

And he said, "Yeah, but that's okay with us."

I said, "Why is it okay with you?"

He said, "Because it's always been bleak."

He said, "We grew up with 9/11, we grew up with the 2008 crash, COVID, you know?

And we see that capitalism isn't really working, at least for us."

- It is a little bit of a scary time to be having a baby because a lot of things feel really unpredictable and uncertain and unstable.

- But I think it's because there's two different groups of people trying and wanting their own American dream to be the correct one.

- It's broken at the moment.

And I think other countries are looking at it and my colleagues at work abroad, they're like, "John, what is happening over there?"

It's kind of obvious what's happening.

Reach out, touch faith - We the people, let's get back to the ideals that others are threatening.

Let's get back to our founding documents.

I want you to redeem to dream.

- [Cathy] The two sides, the north against the south, are rooting for this team and rooting for that team.

And there doesn't seem to be any common ground.

- And the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.

- And you know that in America, the government doesn't get to use its power to punish speech it doesn't like it.

- Our politicians get in office and never get out.

They're hanging onto their jobs, and they're doing what the lobbyists ask them to do because the lobbyists put them in office.

- Politicians are (....) (laughs).

We don't wanna talk about politicians today.

- You know, it used to be that we had vague ideas of what people in different parts of the country might be thinking or what they're like.

Now, we know what people in Oregon are thinking about people in Florida because it says so right on the internet.

- Yeah, I do think it's had an impact on it, and I don't think all positive.

- Some people will say, "It's all your fault.

You know, why did you design this internet?"

I refuse to take responsibility for what other people choose to do with this wonderful, viable fabric.

Reach out and touch faith - It used to be everybody would be talking back here to one another, I mean, farmers to kids, to whatever.

And they were all having a good time, and now it's the cell phone.

(upbeat stirring music) - When we moved from a physical world like this to an online world, the sense of community and sense of belonging has been lost.

- So familiarity builds community.

When you become familiar with someone, then at least they're not strangers.

Even if you don't like them, at least you know who they are.

And so, when we don't have an opportunity to build that kind of familiarity in person, we never generate a community.

- To me, the internet is the worst thing that's happened to this planet since people.

- I have had people threaten to kill me, threaten to rape me.

- There's too much of the anonymous behind the phone or behind the screen.

You know, I can say this to anybody I want to say it to.

But if you were sitting right there face to face with them, you wouldn't say the same thing.

- I try to use it responsibly because I don't wanna be a purveyor of hate.

So I ask people if they have something to say, let's have a conversation, call me up so we can talk through it face to face.

- Media and social media have kind of put forth this vibe that we're so divisive and on each other's throats.

- I think it has a lot to do with what's happened to civic dialogue in our country, but also what's happened to journalism.

So those forces have become an attack on journalism.

And I would argue they've even become an attack on truth itself.

We have too much misinformation and disinformation.

(upbeat stirring music) - [David] It's hard to believe that there's a new generation who have never known a world without the internet.

Growing up inside this digital age, our children are inheriting a country more connected than ever, yet more divided than we've ever seen in our lifetime.

They've never had to knock on a door to see if a friend was there, and maybe arriving just when a friend was needed.

Their sense of belonging lives inside a screen, curated, filtered, and sold back to them in pieces.

Many feel invisible.

They see costs rising, wages stagnant, housing out of reach, and leaders who talk, but rarely listen.

They're told to work hard and dream big, but they've watched how the game is played.

And they know deep down, in some fundamental way, that the playing field simply isn't level anymore.

They watch billionaires try to buy elections, go to space, or raise the price of a life-saving drug.

Not because they had to, but because they wanted to.

They doom scroll all this on their phones while they can't afford the rent, carrying debts their parents could never imagine.

And they're growing up in a nation where the American dream feels like a story someone else used to tell.

And all because of one little invention.

- 37% of young people will say, "I regularly and reliably feel disconnected, isolated, sad, lonely.

(bright stirring music) That was not the case when we were in high school.

- One of the biggest obstacles we're seeing now in college age students are those two transitions.

Going into college, because they don't know how to function independently.

And then moving into the workforce because, again, the expectations, the communication is very different.

- In my classroom, I have children from all over the world.

We have to do school shooting drills, but in our school we call them safety drills because we don't wanna scare the children.

We don't ever go into detail about what they are.

We have to have police come through our school to teach us about what the best thing to do is.

And it's kind of insane because there isn't an answer.

It used to be we have closets that we would go in and stick screws in the door so that you couldn't open them, 'cause they're all wooden doors.

They came and said that's not safe, 'cause they can just shoot through the walls.

Well, one of the first times we did it, I had a child on my lap in the bathroom and he was so scared, he peed his pants all over my lap.

And this is a normal school day for him.

Funny to say that we wanna traumatize them less, but I think they are just living in trauma.

- Young people had 18 months to two years of very important socializing time where they spent alone.

They weren't able to play ball together, they weren't able to visit together.

They didn't date, they didn't connect.

We're not taking care to make sure that young folks have the kinds of connections that they need.

- The sense of a community center or the sense of your local bar or your local YMCA, or things like that, probably have gone out the window with the emergence of technology.

People not leaving, people being inside, social media.

- When I was a kid, there was 13 different playgrounds in Carbondale in the summertime.

And they'd have baseball leagues, basketball, checker tournaments, free throw tournaments.

You don't have much of that anymore.

- The distance between the national and local communities, that divide is growing bigger each day.

And I do think people are paying more attention to the national online community than they are their neighbors.

- This idea of community, the idea that we're gonna have to come together to help each other if we're gonna actually succeed in the future.

Right now we are so polarized, so divided, I worry that we can't keep that American dream alive without really paying attention to how we're gonna focus on community and make sure we take care of each other locally.

- Talk about community, the places that are so valuable to us, there were what they call third spaces everywhere when I was a kid.

Places for kids to go, families to have a little help, public libraries, they're disappearing.

- We didn't realize, when people stopped going to church, that, oh, we used the church hall for the dance and the bake sale and the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts.

We didn't realize all that stuff.

We didn't realize, when gaming went online, that the bowling alley was gonna close.

- Yeah.

- And this is gonna close and that's gonna close.

Okay, it happened.

Someone has to put it back.

(register bell rings) (gentle stirring music) - [Reporter 2] $282.6 million, that's how much the California Department of Finance... - Spent one and a half billion dollars on... - To more than $14 billion, cold hard cash.

(groovy upbeat music) - [David] Everywhere I traveled, I heard the same frustration, that politics cost too much to belong to ordinary people anymore.

- Sure is changing, I mean, I would like to just have functioning democratic processes, I guess would be the American dream.

- [David] Running for city council or Congress used to mean knocking on doors, printing a few yard signs, and talking to your neighbors.

But now it means courting super PACs, outside donors, and billionaires who more often than not never set foot in the towns they influence.

Local candidates can't compete with the flood of outside money.

Elections have become less about the common good and more about who can afford the loudest microphone.

I met people who told me, "We don't even bother voting anymore."

They don't trust the system to hear them.

And I began to believe them 'cause when campaign checks come from somewhere else, local needs get lost in the mail.

It's no longer about the pothole on Main Street or the hospital that might close, or the teacher who can't afford to live in the district where he or she teaches.

It's about, who funds the next ad?

Who builds the next narrative?

Who profits from the next election cycle?

When money speaks louder than citizens, democracy becomes something you rent by the hour.

And in that kind of world, the American dream starts to feel less like a promise and more like a subscription, renewed every four years by whoever can afford it.

(traffic buzzing) (birds chirping) - The Democrats, as well as Republicans, did not do one thing historically.

They didn't make sure that everybody was going to be educated.

Now, they provided public education, which everybody had access to, but they never incented people to stay with it.

And so, you had degrees of education, if you will.

And that began to really take effect, as far as the American dream was concerned, after we were born.

I mean, we are the most successful generation in the history of this nation.

Question is, what happens to our kids who can't afford a home, who haven't been as educated, I'm talking generically now, as we were?

Who don't have the opportunity to look at job opportunities and say, "Yeah, that's what I want, that's what I'm going to get because I know I'm gonna be happy in that place."

That doesn't happen any longer.

I think one of the great mistakes we've all made is making sure that everybody in this country truly had an equal education.

And I don't believe that has been the case.

(gentle bright music) People have to be given faith again and confidence again in their institutions.

And the institutions have been broken down.

I don't care whether you're talking about the church, I don't care if you're talking about political institutions, I don't care if you're talking about schools.

They've been broken down and those have to be broken back up because that's what America has been built around.

- But maybe the answer is, isn't there enough money to go around just to pay those 20 million service workers more money?

- When you see a CEO in today's economy making billions, you look at the Walmart family, you look at the structure of Amazon, our top corporations, Walmart employees and Amazon employees are the largest group of people in America who use the social services of welfare and food stamps.

How?

I'm like, you're the companies that could actually pay a $30 an hour wage and full benefits.

- You know, I pose it to the haves of this country.

You go live on $15 an hour and find out how it feels.

The fact of the matter is, we've got to pay people a wage that is worthwhile.

It's worth their education, it's worth their hard energy and hard work.

And we're not doing that.

- I think more people have to pay attention and be active in their communities.

A lot of people focus on presidential administrations, but nobody knows who their city council people are, or who their county board members are.

And if people would focus more on immediate problems, then politics can be local again.

(gentle bright music) (traffic swooshing) - The American dream is nothing without community.

I sit on a board called NeighborWorks Northeastern Pennsylvania.

All of the work that we do there centers on owning your own home and having dignity in your home.

We do an aging program, so that people can enjoy their twilight years in their house.

- It's a safe community, it's a beautiful community.

We have tons of churches, we have all kinds of community services, but no jobs.

So every year, 100, 125 great kids graduate from high school and the following day they're all gone.

- Arthur Thomas, born and raised in Carbondale, Pennsylvania.

As you can see, it's nothing like it was.

When I joined the service, I joined the Marine Corps.

My father was a brakeman on the DNH railroad.

That was the bedroom that myself and my other three brothers stayed in.

They could afford a family home in those days because the pay was steady and reliable.

My dad, I wouldn't say it's American dream, he was able to provide for his family.

I think that's probably the way he looked at it.

My father was just a hardworking man, worked all his life.

- Our mayor, she's doing a wonderful job in revitalization of all the businesses, everything.

Every day there's something new happening in Carbondale, which hasn't happened in a long time.

- We're trying desperately to turn that around.

People like our current mayor, mayor Bannon and others, are focusing on that big time to try and make it a desirable community to live in.

We have wonderful fire and police protection.

We have a committed city government, and we're all working on the same problem.

So that's a very important thing for a community to have.

- I'm not particularly religious, but families that go to church have better outcomes than families that don't.

Period, full stop, it's inarguable.

- That's the stats?

- That's the stats.

- It doesn't matter what religion, it's just the fact that you go in a service?

- Yeah.

And it may not be the power of Christ, it might just be that it's a family activity that you're all expected to go to, or both.

- Or it might be the fact that you belong to a community.

- Community is the backbone of achieving the American dream.

(bright stirring music) (birds chirping) - Carbondale is one of those areas where that sense of community never left.

I think that the people here put a lot of emphasis on togetherness.

On Friday, we went to the high school football game and it felt as if the entire city of Carbondale was at the football game.

You just get that sense that community is very, very important here.

And I absolutely love that, it feels like home to me.

- If you look around the country and see anybody that works hard, it's because they have a passion for their future and they have a passion for what they're doing.

And as a result, they're effective.

And it doesn't come from sitting on your laurels and expecting somebody to live your life.

It comes from people creating their lives and building their lives and having their dream.

Local government is where everything starts.

- [David] So you bought this in 2018?

Now, did you grow up in Carbondale?

- I did, yeah, I grew up coming here as a kid when the family had it since the early 90s.

- And then you moved out?

- I did, I left, I graduated high school in 2005.

And said when, I graduated, I said, "I'm never coming back."

I said, "This is a dying coal town.

I'm leaving and never looking back."

- And the kitchen is here?

- Yeah, so the kitchen shares both spaces.

Part of the design was to make sure we'd be able to have this outdoor space to be able to sit out here and relax, enjoy yourself, soak in the sun.

What made you decide to come back to Carbondale?

I come home and my aunt tells me she's selling the bar.

I say, "You've been saying that your whole life."

She's like, "No, I am.

I'm tired, I'm 50 some years old.

I don't wanna do it anymore."

And the whole time my wheels were turning saying, "Well, I'm gonna buy it."

I've had the opportunity to be in almost 20 countries and nearly 40 states.

Everywhere I was, I enjoyed living, but it was never home.

In the bigger cities, you're just a person, you're just a number.

A place like this, you know your neighbors, you know who's across the street from you.

The sense of community here is just different.

- Do you support local communities?

- Unequivocally, I sponsor nearly every activity that comes through the doors.

And, you know, that's I think the reason why I do well here and my business thrives because when you support them, they support you and it works that way really well.

- But I think it's important to reinvest in your community, make sure that your community has the resources that it needs to thrive.

A feeling like this place sponsors the local sports teams, this place sponsors the local music programs, this place gives back to the community.

They know, when mothers check out, they say like, "Hey Mary, how are you?"

"Hey Tom, how's it going today?"

It's not just another customer, like this is a person who is involved in and invested in the community and knows these people.

But we're doing it for our children, and we're doing it to improve the communities that we live in.

So when you ask like, are we living the American dream?

I really can't think of a better way to describe the American dream than a husband and a wife doing it for their children, trying to help turn a community around.

- I love what I do, and I think I got the American dream here.

I've got a beautiful family, I've got a home.

My kids have clothes on their back and food in their bellies, so I'm happy that way.

- [David] While communities all over the country are fighting back, it's hard to ignore the fact that there are still too many people struggling to succeed in America.

- I think it's really hard to achieve the American dream if you're getting priced out of your community.

- [David] The more time we spend talking to everyday people across America about why community has faded, the more one factor in particular kept coming up.

So can you explain, for the average person that's not in business, what's the difference between private equity and that Small World Coffee that's owned by Jessica, or this jewelry store that's owned by Hank Siegel?

What's the difference between those businesses and private equity?

- So private equity owns companies and, you know, might target a business like that.

But because they're buying those companies with so much debt, the leverage in a leveraged buyout.

And they are not responsible for that debt, only the portfolio companies are, that results in this split in incentives, right?

We think of free market capitalism as, if I want to succeed, I need to make my business better.

But if you're a private equity firm, that's not necessarily true.

And often, the most profitable move for you is actually the one that weakens your portfolio company.

- The leverage of the hedge funds was huge in creating this new dynamic of American business.

The CEOs were very willing to follow that because it was both profitable for the hedge funds and their investments.

And it was huge profitability for that CEO.

- What does the American dream make me think of?

I've been failed, (chuckles).

- To me, the notion that a person working at a company who could already make a great profit, they built something that could help people if they just told the truth.

Instead, they lied, they decimated communities with this, to make some more money out of something that already would've generated money.

That is morally bankrupt, it's evil.

- [David] But here's the paradox, private equity funds succeed when the numbers look good.

When the funds do well, more money flows in.

But where does that money come from?

It comes from what's called limited partners.

Public pension funds, teachers' retirement systems, state employees' pensions.

This is the largest single class of limited partners in private equity, firefighters, teachers, janitors, bus drivers, and police officers.

In other words, the retirement savings of ordinary Americans.

I read something in your book about the sheer size and scale of private equity.

- Yeah.

- Can you just remind me about that?

- So if the private equity industry was a country, it would have a gross domestic product larger than any country on earth, except for the United States and China.

That's how big it is.

8% of Americans now work for a company owned by private equity.

Obviously that number goes up and up every year.

But even if you don't, private equity is involved in your life in so many ways.

Huge in healthcare, they may own your apartment, or your single family house if you're a renter, veterinary offices, autism therapy practices, nursing homes, they're in public utilities now.

They may be controlling your ability to get water.

- The companies are doing well, you know?

The profits are going up.

The CEOs are making a lot more money than the working class, but I don't feel the working people are doing that much better.

There hasn't been a commensurate increase in the income in the working population.

- There are rational ways to solve these problems.

I think about those studies on how relatively cheaply we could solve homelessness all the time because it is the most rational answer.

- I believe that markets need rules to play by, just the way that sports needs rules.

And I believe if those rules are written properly, then opportunity to extend it much more broadly and we all benefit.

- The threats to America are coming from people who are disaffected, who are committing mass shootings.

People forced to live on the street in the wealthiest country in the history of the world because even though there is so much, there is nothing left for them.

- That's where you have to judge a democracy.

Are they looking after the people who are not able, or have got left behind for one reason or another?

- The future of the American dream, that's tricky.

I think that the future of the American dream can get a little rocky maybe.

- The further back you go, the more drastic the change.

You know, 100 years ago it was about survival versus the American dream of being successful.

- Things really changed when we moved into what I call a 24 hour news cycle.

I think there's a level of anxiety that comes from it, from being barraged all day long with basically bad news.

- To me, you can trace the loss of American innocence in about a eight to 10 year span.

From '63 when Kennedy was assassinated.

- We are standing on the grounds of Parkland Hospital where President Kennedy was brought just a few hours ago and has died.

- [David] Through Bobby, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, right up through Nixon's resignation.

- This more than anything is what I hope will be my legacy.

- Watergate changed journalism forever, right?

I mean, there was no such thing as investigative journalism before.

You wouldn't dig into a politician's past or a rockstar's past or anybody's past before.

It was still that Norman Rockwell world, where everything had this shiny veneer.

But there was, God forbid we should look underneath it, and corruption, pollution, crime, racism, you know?

It changed the whole, our vision of America.

That 10 year period completely destroyed American innocence.

- The world for me has changed.

It's sort of the perception of who we are as a country has gone a little bit less optimistic.

And when I grew up it was kind of, you know, this is a great country.

We fulfill our own destiny here.

And it was the simplicity of that.

I think that might be gone now.

(gentle stirring music) - [David] People everywhere agreed that another thing that feels lost is our generation's ability to cure the problems of wealth distribution.

And it's not just about finance.

We all shake our heads that Jeff Bezos' wealth, but when it comes time to buy a pair of socks, we don't drive to the department store.

We want them on our doorstep overnight.

We complain about the tech billionaires, but we do it on the very platforms they created, the ones we scroll every day.

And all along, contributing to the wealth we complain about.

And we enjoy calling our friends on apps that bypass our phone bill.

I'm not saying tech companies harvesting our data is fair or right.

I'm saying we all have to be willing to stand up and change.

We can't have it both ways.

We are all part of the same system.

When businesses were small, responsibility was local.

When businesses became global, responsibility became optional.

The question is whether democracy can survive that gap.

I'm not arguing against capitalism, I'm arguing for matching power with accountability, which historically is how stable systems survived.

It's what responsibility looks like.

And I'm okay with companies I invest in showing less profit if it means ordinary people finally get their fair share.

(gentle bright music) (bird chirping) I can't go on the web and find a plan from a policymaker that says, this is what we're gonna do to solve this problem that we all know we have.

- What the left would say is, that there are structural barriers and that there is government intervention that's required in order to prevent somebody from being in that circumstance like where they might have debt and they can't get out of it.

Whereas Republicans would say, that's on the person.

And that very disagreement is at the heart of many of the debates that both parties have.

And quite frankly, we are at such a crossroads that many Americans are frustrated with the entire system, including both of the parties.

- The majority of Americans don't make enough money to cover some of the basic costs of living.

- 60% of Americans can't meet a minimum quality of life standards.

(gentle stirring music) - It's rooted in idealism, and the problem with idealism is that it's idyllic.

Everybody's a winner, you know?

Everybody comes out on top.

And that's just not true.

You know, it feels like in a way that the system is kind of designed for certain people to fail so that, you know, a few percentage can succeed.

- It used to be that someone like your grandfather, a janitor could have a home.

But when you watch the turnover of the profit machine, do you help them rebuild a life?

Do you care about your neighbors?

Or do you say, "Well, I'm doing well and that's their problem?"

- It was very easy for corporations to sell out their workforce to a cheaper labor force.

And the CEO can unload 10,000 workers and take the work to, whether it's China or some other developing nation.

- Some of it does come down to personal choices.

We're gonna have to support those companies that are good to the people who work there.

The hospitals that do the right thing and pay people a fair wage.

The schools where teachers make a good salary.

And I would argue, just 'cause it's my craft, it's the thing I really care about and think a lot about, I think we're gonna have to find a formula that supports local journalism as community service.

- Across the country, there are deserts of news.

Local newspapers print fewer pages less frequently and in some cases collapse entirely.

- I do think that the failure of American journalism is that we weren't listening.

And I think that has everything to do with the way people don't feel they can trust journalism anymore.

Fair enough.

We have a huge responsibility.

My brothers and sisters have a huge responsibility for that, but I hope we can convince them that those old standards that we had, and one of those models is community supported news.

Is to go back to the idea that if the community's gonna use this as their trusted source, then the community's got to get behind it.

- News Gazette Media has said they're shutting down the papers because they're no longer profitable.

- When you have what we call a news desert, we know three things factually, discernibly through research.

One, polarization, communities become more and more polarized.

Two, voter participation plummets.

People don't even know who to vote for anymore 'cause no one's telling them who the candidates are.

And the last one is banks.

Their bond ratings on those communities that no longer have a news organization drop.

And that becomes a spiral that even further stresses out the community and pulls it even further apart.

- [David] I guess you have to wonder, in a world when no one under a certain income level can even dream of owning a home, where communities have been decimated, private equity is buying and shutting down local newspapers and even town halls, what will they go after next?

Unfortunately, I found the answer to that question was way too close to home.

This hospital, as you know, was around since the 1860s.

And I was born right here.

- Yeah.

- All my brothers and sisters were born here.

So this hospital was the heart and soul of this part of Boston.

Your old paper said that this was brought by private equity, and that "Wall Street Journal" had a similar story.

And it said they took this valuable piece of real estate and they sold it and they dividend back the money to themselves and then made the hospital pay rent.

At some point, the hospital couldn't pay enough rent, so it filed for bankruptcy.

And your paper and the "Wall Street Journal" went back and forth as whether the CEO made 81 million or 250 million.

- [Reporter 2] Its current owner, a Los Angeles based company called Prospect Medical Holdings, began cutting services.

First the maternity ward went, then the operating rooms.

The emergency room closed its doors to the community's nearly 85,000 residents.

- [Charles] And that's what you end up with.

- That's what you end up with.

Profit should be way down the list of priorities.

- Yeah.

- And I would say a hospital, a community hospital, has to be one of those otherwise we've lost our way.

How can a community survive if we've changed the mission of a hospital to be from curing and comforting sick people to making money?

- [Anchor 1] The state of Wyoming has plans to demolish the old state hospital next summer.

- Citizens are fighting to preserve the landmark.

There is an online petition to tell Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon to save the hospital.

- [Reporter 3] Evanston City Council member Jen Hegeman says it would cost almost as much to demolish the buildings as it would to restore them.

(gentle bright music) (birds chirping) - The story in Wyoming was the most inspirational to me because once their hospital got devastated, you couldn't deliver a baby there anymore.

You couldn't get general surgery anymore, unless it was between nine and five.

You could not get a cut stitched up there if it was after hours.

At a certain point, this was no longer a hospital.

It was a hospital in name only.

They had a group they called Save our Riverton Hospital.

And after a couple of years, they decided this isn't going to work.

The private equity firm is not listening to us.

The private equity firm has never set foot in this community, has no investment here.

We are just a line on a spreadsheet.

And so, they stopped fighting to save our Riverton hospital.

And what they did instead was they said, we're going to create our own.

And I think when most people hear, in a town of 10,000 people in a poor area of the country, "We're going to start our own hospital," they think that is so sweet and so naive.

Of course, you cannot start your own hospital from scratch, that's bonkers.

And what happened was they got the largest USDA low income loan in the history of the state of Wyoming.

They had all of their neighbors pressing checks into their hand at the grocery store, literally five or $10 at a time.

They have raised over $60 million, and have broken ground on a new hospital where you will be able to- - Yes.

- Deliver a baby, you will be able to have general surgery, where you will be able to have a cut stitched up, because everyone in our society should be entitled to that kind of care in their communities.

And now because of this kind of ragtag group of locals in Riverton, Wyoming, that's what they're going to be able to do.

- Don't you love people that have a heart like a lion?

- Yeah.

- And they just say they're gonna do it, and America's full of those people?

- Yes, and who are not intimidated.

Who, when staring down a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, rather than saying, "We couldn't possibly," say, "I don't know, we have creative solutions."

- [Reporter 4] A new four story outpatient service center will house clinics for all kinds of things, including rheumatory and pediatrics and things like that.

- And the thing that is most inspiring to me about this story in Wyoming, is that it was a solution that could only be come to by locals, right?

Only they understood that community well enough to know that it would actually work.

(gentle stirring music) - [David] All over America, it feels like something is brewing.

The division is becoming something else.

The desire to come back together, to rediscover what America once was.

And at the center of it all are artists.

- We have to rebuild new with new ideas.

- Can art help?

- Oh, yes, yes.

(bright stirring music) - [David] From my point of view, no matter how divided or discouraged we may seem, it's often our artists who remind us of who we are.

The painter who puts our struggles on a canvas.

The poet who finds words when ours run out.

The songwriter who dares to imagine a world better than today.

I think it's time we stop Children, what's sound Everybody look what's going down - The music that came out of the abolitionist movement, the music that came out of the Civil Rights Movement, the music that came out of the anti-war movement during Vietnam was powerful and it fueled those movements.

It might feel good It might sound a little something But damn, the game if it don't mean nothing - I do think that art and music and artists have an important role in the American dream.

- I think that there still is a lot of great music, film, art.

I feel like it's more important than ever.

- Kendrick Lamar, the hip hop movement in America, art is always gonna push the boundaries of what is right and what is wrong and call out the injustices that they see.

- I think right now more than ever, we need artists to be more real about the situation.

You know, write political music.

Write music about the struggles of being a young adult in this country.

Not sure if that's breakdown or breakthrough How long you willing to grind Nights are morning when sun rises Still down when the sun shines It's only you when you're light, no limelight Hard work and perseverance meet divine time So everyday, no paycheck Still committing when the light's off I can't pay rent This day is not tomorrow Your soul and my soul are not forgotten This song is for lost boys plus the brokenhearted I'm here for the marginalized, not the margin - The poem or the painting or the song derives from its moment.

The art comes from society.

Every piece of art reflects the very moment in which it was made.

So the only obligation that an artist has, I would say, is to their art.

(gentle stirring music) - [David] Long before my grandfather came here from Ireland to chase his dreams, he had to pack a bag.

I'm sure he whispered a prayer and crossed an ocean towards the future he couldn't yet see.

I still can't imagine how a 16-year-old could carry a dream in their pocket, and believe in a country they'd never seen.

My eyes have seen the glory Of the coming of the Lord He is trampling out the vintage Where the grapes of wrath are stored He hath loosed the fateful lightning Of his terrible swift sword His truth is marching On - Here's a song that was reportedly sung by both sides in the Civil War.

- You a Johnny Cash fan?

- Love Johnny Cash.

How do you not?

Have you met somebody who said no to that question?

That would be suspect.

- Which proves one thing to me, that a song can belong to all of us.

You don't have to be a rich man to have a beautiful thing like music.

- So "The Battle Hymn of The Republic," to me, there's a lot of things you can think about it on face value, if you take the lyrics at face value.

But to me, it's really a song about opportunity.

Now, Johnny Cash's version of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" takes a song that's sort of a little bit militaristic in fashion and makes it something really fragile and really vulnerable.

- I could close my eyes and hear this song and picture a group of beaten, wounded, ragged Civil War soldiers trying to make that last mile home after the last battle.

And if there was strength for a song, this would've been a great inspiration.

- It was a revolutionary song for John Brown.

He gave his life for the cause of freeing the slaves.

- How long?

Not long.

- Not long.

- Because my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

- When a woman by the name of Howe, who was a social activist in a time when there weren't many social activists and there surely weren't female social activists, she wrote a new verse for the song.

And she was basically saying, if you believe in God, how can you believe in slavery?

- He's trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

- Yes sir.

- Her goal there was to take an old folk song, rewrite the lyrics during the Civil War, and make something that the soldiers could march to.

I mean, it's withstood the test of time, mostly because no matter what you think about the lyrics, it just powerful emotionally.

- He's loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.

His truth is marching on.

- Yes sir.

- In making the art, it's inevitable that the society will be reflected.

- It's something that you could interpret very easily as something that's very religious.

But to me, it's more of a hopeful song than anything else.

Mine eyes have seen the glory Of the coming of the Lord - And the idea that it's a march indicates they were going forward towards what?

And hopefully, in this case, that it's this idea that we're carrying this truth with us, right?

What is this truth?

It's a divine truth, it's the Lord's truth.

The Lord's truth has something to do about me and my brother, has something to do about me and my brother walking together to carry the truth to some place where it's not currently.

(gentle bright music) Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah The truth is marching on - I believe a visual artist or any kind of art form, whether it's music or whatnot, we have, like I said, a responsibility to tell the world a story.

- Storytelling, I think is at the heart, how we express that American dream.

And to some extent, how we share what it is to have an American dream.

- I do believe that art has a role in the American dream, particularly 'cause I think art gives human beings the most feeling.

When you're chasing the American dream, I think we're chasing a feeling.

- And I've seen the promised land.

I may not get there with you.

And I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

- To try to live by the ideals of which we're very conscious, and that actually have brought us together and made us Americans.

And I think for the most part, we really, you know, still believe in the possibility that a country that has survived genocide, that has survived somewhat slavery as an institution, a country that has survived a civil war, right?

Those three things alone, a nation that has survived those, I think has in it, if we mind ourselves, to survive anything.

Glory glory, I see the beauty within the night Another opportunity for me to make it right Can't be afraid to have fear, you won't ever fight When you finally knuckle up is when you see the light Glory, hallelujah for the truth If you won't treat me like a man I'll let my actions be the proof It's easy for a child to wanna throw a fist But if I beat you with my words, then that's intelligence - The right art or stuff that speaks to people can create movements, whether that's a song or a certain piece of art.

I feel like it sparks kind of a fire within people.

My eyes have seen the fractures in a land we call our own Where the justice sways like branches In a stormy (indistinct) below Yet the hands still reach through darkness Planting seeds we've never known And the hope keeps marching on And the hope keeps marching on - If you have protests that go in against a barrier, people protesting a barrier to the American dream, that's certainly crucial.

We saw that in the Civil Rights Movement.

We saw that in different instances in American history where there were barriers to the American dream that, through protests, through cultural leaders, those got resolved.

- As we traveled through America, we ask artists, "Take a fourth version, make another version, 'cause if we ever needed a battle hymn for the Republic, it's now."

- Wait, what do we do about that?

- What if we crescendo?

I mean, we crescendo a lot (indistinct).

Double ending?

(Native language music) (traffic buzzing) - [David] This is actually beautiful right here.

- One, two, three, four.

(gentle bright music) - "Battle Hymn of the Republic," by Julia Ward Howe.

(gentle bright music continues) The truth goes marching on (gentle bright music continues) Mine eyes have seen the glory Of the coming of the Lord He is trampling out the vintage Where the grapes of wrath are stored He hath loosed the fateful lightning Of his terrible swift sword His truth is marching on Is marching on My eyes have the fracture In the land we call our own Where justice sways like branches In a stormy wake below Yet hands still reach through darkness Planting seeds we've never known And hope keeps marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah His truth is marching on - As long, as you know, we're putting people in office that have the best interest for the people and not big corporations that are all about money.

And you got to be courageous sometimes and go against the grain and speak up about things that aren't necessarily a fan favorite.

I can say, take a step back sometimes, take two steps forward.

But I still believe that all things is possible out here in America.

And we still have a lot of good going for us, even though there's still challenges along the way.

I have heard the voices rising From the fields and from the floor From the worker and the dreamer Who can bear it anymore Still they carry hope unbroken Like a lantern at the door And truth goes marching on - America had some birthing pains in the beginning of her existence.

But 250 years later, we've worked through many of our problems.

And we've given that opportunity for success to everyone that's a citizen of the country.

- If it was fragile and it was as delicate as you fear, it would already have been destroyed.

And so, I don't feel that any, you know, politician, however extreme they might be at any given time, is capable of damaging the American dream.

It's already embedded in who we are as humans.

- We're needing to get back to our base.

And we're too lost in the information and the noise and the sound, and just focus on what matters most to you at this time.

- In this country, again, there are just so many amazing people who have the right compass.

Their North Star is still bright.

And I think that is what people need to hold onto.

When I hit the sack Wanna spit, wanna rip that flag So I lit this match for liberty, distant passed And dim lit with a limp slip, quicksand to the misfit (indistinct) of this damn mirror Excruciating, my face twitches Exorcism, my spaceship flies low so the paint drips Crop circles, half fertile Embolism in the same breath Push it to the break of me and you America's a dream Time to wake up to the new country - If we lose hope, if we lose sight of the ideas and the values that underlay the American dream, we're totally lost.

We have to hold out a vision of what we want in order to get anywhere.

- And you see kids and I see kids every day that make their dream come true by believing and working hard and failing and learning from failing.

- If there was one lesson that the rest of the world can really, you know, take from the whole US experience, it is that you have to be prepared to get things wrong in order to make great strides forward.

- I deeply believe in humanity's ability to shoot itself in the foot.

But the world's gonna keep on turning, the plants are gonna keep growing, the animals are gonna keep living.

Will we be among them?

I don't know.

I don't know, that's up to us.

- Red and I couldn't be more polar opposites on our political views, but yet we're sitting here drinking beer together.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Watching tv, you know, that's what you got to do.

We hold the key between us To a world we've never known A peaceful world to live in A harmony of souls Where each and every one of us Is free to love and grow As peace becomes Our love America, a dream That lingers deep in every soul Ensure the right to freedom As we watch our children grow For the vision that our fathers And the (indistinct) Who had came and settled On these shores - I feel like a lot of the new generations don't appreciate as much or know enough about the American dream, or how much people worked hard to get here.

- [David] The general consensus of the young people I spoke to was that these are uncertain times for the dream.

But not all of them have given up.

All across the country, I met young people starting businesses, joining co-ops, organizing local drives, building things that last.

They're skeptical, yes, but also sharper, more awake, more connected to purpose than my contemporaries.

They see through the short-term thinking that traps so many of us.

And in their voices, I hear an echo of the same promise that built America in the first place.

The belief that change isn't handed down, it's made by people who show up.

Every generation inherits not just a nation, but a responsibility to repair what was broken and carry forward what was good.

- It is always changing.

I feel like there is always a different dream for every single person.

And people will always keep fighting for that dream.

And in that sense, I'm optimistic.

- Yeah, I think it's so much harder for young people today, but I also think the young people are so much better than we ever were.

And so, I think if anybody can meet this challenge, it is them.

- The American dream would be different for my daughter because there's more opportunities now.

There's more to look forward to than 100 years ago.

- If you strive hard at what you wanna do, you'll make it, absolutely.

And I'm one to say that right now.

- Do you feel like you can reach the American dream?

- Absolutely, and I intend to.

Together, we intend to.

- I think Americans can figure it out.

I think we can figure it out together.

So I'm optimistic on this one.

- So I think if you work hard, then everybody still can make their dream come true.

- Despite all of this sort of identity crisis that we're facing right now, Americans largely, almost 80% of 'em say, "Yes, the American dream is still relevant."

And even more interesting, over 70% of them say, "I think I'm gonna attain it."

- [David] The American dream was never supposed to be about maximizing margins.

It was supposed to be about maximizing dignity, about giving ordinary people a fair shot, a roof, a family, a future.

- I have to remain optimistic.

I see all the feet on the ground today.

And know that as the next generation comes to power, that things are gonna get better.

- Our kids seem to love everybody.

They seem to not have the hate in their hearts.

They seem to not be jaded.

They have a future kind of lens.

So to realize what a new American dream is, I think we need to look to our children a lot.

And our elders, of course.

- If everyone felt hopeless and didn't feel optimistic about it, then we're gonna lose the spark of change and like the spark of progression.

- Things can only get better.

I know we've been struggling with a lot of things that have made us feel a lot down in the past few years.

But if we're down, then means we're only on the up and up.

So I think optimism is where we're at.

Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah His truth is marching On - We are, one and all, immigrants or their sons and daughters.

- We are the descendants of 40 million people who left other countries to make a new opportunity for themselves and their children.

- The lamp of this grand old lady is brighter today.

And the golden door that she guards gleams more brilliantly in the light.

- Our nation is the enduring dream of every immigrant whoever set foot on these shores, and the millions still struggling to be free.

(bright stirring music) - The seed was freedom.

The founding fathers literally put in the documents, it's about freedom, liberty and justice for all.

And that will have to evolve, so here's how to do it over time.

- [David] And that's why this song, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," felt like an appropriate way to close this journey across America.

'Cause this song has always risen when America was tested, it carried the voices of soldiers who longed for freedom.

It carried the voice of workers who demanded dignity.

It carries the voices of marchers who dream of equality.

And it carries me too, not because it's perfect, because it isn't, because it reminds us that even in the hardest times, we are still bound together by hope, still lifted by courage, still marching towards a promise of something better.

Too many service workers who keep our nation running struggle to pay their bills while others prosper.

Their voices too must be heard in the song of America.

Their dignity must be part of our dream, 'cause America stands on their shoulders.

And surely, they deserve better.

(upbeat bright music) Say brothers, will you meet us Say brothers, will you meet us Say brothers, will you meet us (musicians singing indistinctly) - The world thinks the American dream is in question, and we're here to prove it's not.

(bright upbeat music) - I think that's the definition of the American dream.

You turn your back I guess you don't care Ignore those who suffer To you it all seems fair So many hurting Well, it's your problem too Step up before your karma Catches up with you Too much is never enough Do you really need that much We could try something new A little give and take I can mind And so do you Oh, you do you, oh yeah Well, your fortune shines But it could all disappear Tomorrow's not promised The path is never clear Clowns are at the wheel And the rest will pay Protect your heart and soul Before they take it away Too much is never enough Do you really need that much We could try something new Yeah, a little give and take I can mind And so do you Oh, so do you, yeah Oh-oh Mm So do you I count my blessings on repeat every day Hold on to my loved ones And I give my heart away Change will happen if we take less and give more Fix all the broken promises And unlock all the doors Unlock all these doors Ah-ah, oh (bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music)