It never fucking existed as a potential reality except for a small fraction of the US Populace. It has never been anything more than a lotto. The right parents, the right place, the right idea, the right time, the right friends and the first truly objective qualities that give a person a "chance" in America are those specific combinations of physical prowess which create an elite athlete. Gladiator material in an earlier more brutal age.

With a little bit of the right stuff, the default American Dream: 2 cars, house, spouse and 2.4 kids is realisable, IF your parents had a piece of that dream. Without a start, and a lot of the "right stuff" you might make it soon enough to give your children a chance at the dream.

For those who actually made it possible for the Middle America to come into being: The slaves and ex-slaves; always Hispanics; the Italian immigrants and Irish; then Asians and most recently Middle Easterners, the American Dream is an occasionally offered prize keeping the proles ever hopefull that THEY might be "The One" to realise that proffered "Dream" next.

And for a long time it's all been a pretty good ride. But ALL of America has been one great Ponzi scheme from the start. The whole edifice has been built on an enormous transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. And now that most of the wealth has made it to the top the whole house of cards is colapsing. Running the whole mess on credit papered over the cracks for a while, but as we're now seeing all that was really accomplished was to transfer a goodly chunk of the last bit of concrete wealth in the middle (the family home) upwards.

And running right through it all from the moment the Americas were first settled are guns. Guns to take from the natives what they were not using properly. Guns to prevent the natives from taking back what was taken from them. More guns, because for some it seemed easier to let others do the toiling in soil, and just take the proceeds. So more guns still to hold onto what's yours. Guns were so central the American lifestyle that their possession was made a constitutional right.

Right at the guts of the national credo is an almost pathological belief that the other bloke is a <choose your perjorative> and as a nation (and generic individuals) Americans tend to behave accordingly. It becomes a self fullfilling prophecy.

Bad enough that everything looks like a nail when the only tool you have is a hammer. When the tool is a gun everything becomes either prey or a threat.