Requiem for the American Dream: a big data analysis 🇺🇸
"While the American Dream reminds us that every man is a heir of a legacy of worthfullness. But ever since the Founding Fathers of our nation dreamed this dream, America has been something of a schizophrenic personality."
55 years later, Martin Luther King Jr's words from his 1965 July 4th speech are now more applicable than ever. Political polarization – the vast and growing gap between liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats – is a defining feature of American politics today. Social media has been weaponized to fuel this growing divide. The pandemic has been mishandled and the US now leads the world in the daily new Coronavirus cases, while other countries with fewer resources and reach got it right. Both sides of the American divide agree that there is a clear lack of leadership.
It shouldn't come as a complete surprise that a decreasing percentage of people in the US are proud to be American. American patriotism is at its lowest point since 2001, according to a Gallup report published just 2 days ago. A quick search on NWO.AI reveals that the Impact Signals for "American Pride" and "American Dream" have faded by 35% and 13% respectively. Impact Score is a market-tested metric that combines search interest, online media, and TV mentions and denotes the mindshare occupied by a trend in the culture at any given time.
The American Dream signal, in particular, has experienced its sharpest decline in history. Recent restrictive immigration policies might also explain the sharp decline around the beginning of April 2020.
The bigger picture: As America pulls back from global leadership, other powers are stepping up. Just after becoming General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in late 2012, Xi Jinping announced what would become the hallmark of his administration. "The Chinese Dream," he said, is "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." Compared to the American dream, the Chinese dream has consistently reached its peak periodically. An analysis of the Impact Signal reveals that the Chinese Dream tends to reach its peak every year around the Lunar New Year. NWO.AI's predictive indicators that warn clients of inflection points in the signal have already sounded the alarm in mid-June (the star represents an inflection point). A rise in the Chinese Dream signal typically correlates to a major military exercise or an announcement by the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Beyond the bipolar world disorder of the US and China, other nations such as New Zealand have also built up their national pride signals. Billionaires have been looking for a bolthole safe from doomsday scenarios for several years and New Zealand has been on top of the list. Recently, New Zealand has been lauded for its handling of the coronavirus under the leadership of PM Jacinda Ardern and became one of the first countries to eliminate COVID-19. The signal for "Moving to New Zealand" had reached an inflection point at the beginning of March and has been been growing exponentially since then.
A final note: In the book, The Fourth Turning, authors William Straus and Neil Howe posit that events, at least in the American realm, are cyclical with each cycle lasting 20-22 years, in which a new social, political, and economic climate is created. Currently, America is in the midst of the crisis cycle, according to the book written in the form of a prophecy in 1997. The crisis cycle is followed by a recovery (high), where new, reinforced institutions are born and communitarian values are strong. If Straus-Howe's forecast were to play out to fruition, perhaps there is some hope in the ending to MLK's speech from 1965:
"And so with this faith in the future, we will be able to adjourn the counsels of the staff rise from the fatigue of darkness, to the buoyancy of hope. And we will be able bring into being this new society and realize the American dream."
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