The American Question | movie | 2024 | Official Clip - video Dailymotion

The American Question explores the roots of American polarization and distrust in a quest for unity amidst division. | dG1fbDZPTFN6S0VVT3M

Transcript

00:00When you have rapid economic changes, more technology, more globalization,

00:07it's disruptive of people's lives and their attitudes don't shift as quickly

00:12as the economy is shifting under their feet.

00:16Why is it that poverty is so difficult in the United States?

00:19What is it that's so difficult about being poor in a rich land?

00:23For many, many years, if you were a manufacturing worker, a miner,

00:28many other blue-collar jobs, you got a high school education

00:31and you had a stable, respected middle-class life.

00:35The two words, stability and respect, are very important here.

00:39You were respected because you worked hard.

00:42And all of the other people that fell behind, fell behind because it was their fault.

00:46When the stable blue-collar jobs went away, these were often one-horse towns.

00:51The firm pulls out, the local mom-and-pop shops pull out, there wasn't much else there.

00:56And so the loss of hope in the American dream, the places that are most desperate in the U.S. now,

01:01don't have other things to fall back on. They've lost the narrative of their lives.