Restoration of the American Dream

Restoration of the American Dream
By Trish Regan

My grandfather only finished the 7th grade. He worked most of his life as the night watchman at the City Yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire... a former Navy shipping town on the southern coast of the state.

One hundred hours a week... at 50 cents an hour. That equated to a weekly paycheck of $50... And, being a typical Irishman, he had eight little mouths at home to feed.

Those eight little kids knew what it was like to be really poor. They went without shoes in the summer and wore donated heavy coats in the winter... But their father worked hard and always told them they could be anything they wanted to be.

And, you know what? They believed him.

I thought about my grandfather as I watched the Republican National Convention this week. Republicans are seeking to remind Americans of the opportunities that make our country so unique.

Yet, reading the liberal media's headlines in real time... I was struck by the venom.

"GOP pushes falsehoods and fear at convention," says the New York Times. Meanwhile, the Washington Post ran breaking headlines that read: "Republicans abandon promises of an optimistic convention and try to recast accusations of racism."

Recast? Is that because the GOP dared to have an Indian American, former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, speak? She addressed the issue head-on... "In much of the Dem party, it's now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie."

Meanwhile, Senator Tim Scott spoke of his own family's origins... "Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime. And that's why I believe the next American century can be better than the last."

I think we can all agree... Every American must be afforded the opportunity to access the American Dream...

However, the Left, through unfortunate policy choices, has increased the economic challenges in poor, urban communities.

I've reported on New York City schools where high schoolers cannot read or write English... yet no one cares. They simply pass them through the system. So why not offer vouchers and charter schools?

Many parts of urban America could be infused with investment via low-tax opportunity zones... And yet, the Left resists.

There are serious structural socioeconomic problems in America... So why is the Left trying to take the same socialist-style policies they use to run America's biggest cities and employ them on a national scale?

Republicans are being criticized because they dare to refute the Left's narrative that America is racist and President Trump is evil.

I think we can all agree there are challenges in America today. However, those challenges are a result of lousy economic policies that made it nearly impossible for many minorities to break the cycle of poverty.

We can do better. We must do better...

But will Joe Biden accomplish that?

Not according to Donald Trump Jr., who had one of the most tweeted quotes of the night...

Joe Biden is basically the Loch Ness monster of the swamp... For the past half century, he's been lurking around in there. Sticks his head up every now and then to run for president and then doesn't do much in between.

He argued that Biden's economic ideas were designed to crush the middle-class worker... but that his father's policies, "have been like rocket fuel to the economy and especially to the middle class. Biden has promised to take that money back out of your pocket and keep it in the swamp."

Social media erupted after his quip about "Beijing Biden"... But bottom line, he hit on the policy issues that matter for the middle class, citing Biden's support of NAFTA, his support for TPP... and even noted that, "Beijing Biden is so weak on China that the intelligence community recently assessed that they prefer Biden. They know he'll weaken us economically and on a world stage."

It is the middle class that has been robbed of opportunity in recent decades.

I think of it like this... the Left – and the Right – delivered us an hourglass economy... complete with plenty on top, plenty on bottom, and very little in between. The middle class, the ones doing everything right... playing by the rules... working, saving, paying their mortgage, trying to save for their kids' education and their retirement... THEY are the ones that lose in a bureaucratic, top-heavy, government-run, tax-to-death economy.

If you're on the bottom, you get handouts and free government money for college... But the middle-class family scraping by is told they earn too much for financial aid. Somehow, they're supposed to sell their home to send their kids to school... just so their kids can get indoctrinated by this groupthink?

America is nothing without a strong middle class... and freedom.

Army veteran and American Consequences contributor Sean Parnell, who is running to unseat Democrat incumbent U.S. Representative Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania, highlighted that very issue saying, "My fellow Americans, I promise you this: in our tent you are free. Free to speak the truth, choose your journey, define your life."

Imagine that... a world that preaches tolerance.

As the president's son said, "In the past, both parties believed in the goodness of America. We agreed on where we wanted to go... We just disagreed on how to get there. This time the other party is attacking the very principles upon which our nation was founded. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech."

Meanwhile, my former colleague Kimberly Guilfoyle distilled it this way, "This election is a battle for the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture, the cosmopolitan elites... who blame America first? Do you think America is to blame? Or do you believe in American greatness?"

Somewhere deep inside us, regardless of party, I think we all believe in American greatness...

I know my grandfather did – the man who only finished 7th grade, and in his retirement went on to become a state legislator... in charge of his state's education department!

Only in America, as they say.

His children – my father, my aunts, and my uncles – all eight of them are a darn impressive bunch... an economics professor, a teacher, a journalist, a nurse, three lawyers (including one that was twice the Democrat Party's gubernatorial nominee), and his eldest daughter, the Mayor of the city my grandfather once worked for...

You see, it can happen, right here in America... in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

My grandfather loved this country and all it enabled him and his family to achieve – because, fundamentally, America is good.