“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” This quote, often misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, represents an enduring falsehood that has found repeated use over many years. The United States has historically maintained an image of exceptionalism as it stands as a self-proclaimed leader of democracy and capitalism while operating as a global empire sustained by its economic power and military authority. And yet, behind the curated image of power and prosperity lies an inconvenient truth: Most American people have never experienced true greatness within the United States.
This reality functions as a perfect illusion.A myth persists about America’s past as a land of opportunity, fairness, and moral superiority because it has become a deeply embedded belief. The founding fathers built the nation’s foundation on structured oppression rather than universal freedom. The country rose through the forced labor of slaves while Indigenous people faced extermination and while men largely dominated women. The capitalist economic system is a god-like entity established to fortify elite power while exploiting the majority.
Consider the words of President John Adams in 1776: The ownership of property determines whether liberty exists for any individual. Whose liberty? The Founding Fathers used their articulate language on freedom to establish a system where wealthy white landowners held centralized power. The Constitution serves as a revered text but operates as a precise agreement that enables elite rulers to maintain their power rather than establishing a democratic system.
American foundations established the nation as an aristocracy under the guise of democratic institutions rather than a society based on equal rights. Deliberate design choices, including the Electoral College system, unequal Senate representation, and voting restrictions for particular demographics, ensured governance control by the privileged elite.
Conquest and forced labor were the main drivers of the early American economy. Black Americans endured subjugation through legal and violent means, while Southern plantation owners amassed immense wealth from the unpaid labor of enslaved Africans. The Northern industrial economy earned praise as a symbol of advancement but depended heavily on immigrant labor who endured terrible working conditions. American prosperity developed from economic and racial hierarchical systems.
America’s claim to greatness rested on Manifest Destiny, which served as a pretense for genocide and land theft. Under Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 caused the mass displacement of tens of thousands of Indigenous peoples and resulted in the Trail of Tears, during which thousands lost their lives. A benevolent republic did not carry out this action; instead, it represented the deliberate growth of an empire sustained by bloodshed and violated treaties.
Women’s rights, too, were systematically suppressed. Even though Abigail Adams urged her husband to consider women when writing national laws, they remained without voting rights for over 100 years. The Cult of Domesticity kept women in subservient positions, and although the country passed the 19th Amendment in 1920, Jim Crow laws continued to block voting rights for many women of color.
Rhetoric maintained the appearance of fairness and meritocracy, while real-world conditions revealed an entirely different picture. Social position in America depended on wealth, race, and gender, while those outside power circles found the nation’s promised freedom elusive.
Capitalism was the hidden adversary inside the gates of the republic as a governing principle rather than an economic system. It functions as the unseen creator of systemic inequality by converting government operations into a marketplace where policies are auctioned to top bidders.
Andrew Carnegie, who became famous as one of the 19th-century industrial magnates, expressed in The Gospel of Wealth (1889) that dying wealthy was shameful, but his true legacy alongside his peers was creating a system that allowed small groups to accumulate wealth through the widespread exploitation of labor. As its name suggests, the Gilded Age represented a period of extreme inequality rather than genuine prosperity. Historic monopolists like Rockefeller, Morgan, and Vanderbilt established today’s corporate oligarchy, dominating economic power with monarchical force.
And it has not changed.
The United States GDP continues to reach remarkable heights, and Wall Street proclaims multiple victories, yet the gap between rich and poor expands. Working-class individuals remain trapped in economic stagnation as corporate earnings rise and the American dream of homeownership and upward mobility proves elusive.
America’s capitalist system has never centered on innovation or opportunity. It has been about control. The capitalist system turns healthcare into a privilege instead of a fundamental right. In American capitalism, housing exists primarily as an investment opportunity rather than an essential human requirement. The financial benefits of war demonstrate why peace remains economically unattractive. The system convinces average Americans to defend it as though it were created for their benefit because capitalism’s most deceptive move was making its victims believe they were free.
The neoliberal era only exacerbated these inequalities. Government policies began with Reagan’s trickle-down economics and continued through Clinton’s financial market deregulation to serve corporate interests before public welfare. Unchecked greed on Wall Street drove the 2008 financial crisis, which resulted in millions of people losing their homes as banks received bailouts. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how vulnerable American workers are because billionaires made enormous profits while frontline workers earned stagnant wages and received insufficient safety measures.
From the start, the system functioned precisely as its builders had intended.
America continues to promote equality, yet its foundation depends on systematic division. The foundations of American history are built upon classism, racism, and sexism, which functioned as core elements of its structure rather than incidental blemishes. The nation has consistently presented a facade of justice yet has restricted access to justice as a privilege rather than a universal entitlement.
Despite its successes, the Civil Rights Movement could not eliminate systemic racism but instead compelled the system to transform into a subtler form of oppression. Slavery abolition only moved racial oppression from one system to another set of institutions. Black Codes and Jim Crow laws quickly followed the Reconstruction era to maintain Black Americans as second-class citizens. Millions of Black families moved from the South to northern cities during the Great Migration, but this relocation did not eliminate racial violence but instead transformed its nature. Black wealth growth remained blocked because of housing discrimination along with redlining and predatory lending practices. Mass incarceration emerged as the primary system of racial control after the abolition of legal segregation.
The 1980s “war on drugs,” which operated under a “law and order” banner, led to targeting predominantly black and brown communities and resulted in the development of today’s prison-industrial complex. The combination of mandatory minimum sentences with three-strikes laws and prison privatization transformed incarceration into a profitable industry. The United States contains 5% of the global population yet houses approximately 25% of the world’s prisoners, who are mainly people of color.
A.D. Bevan
Despite obtaining voting rights in 1920, women faced decades of being forced to adhere to strict domestic roles. The supposed liberation movement of the 1960s and ’70s failed to provide complete equality because it permitted women to work outside the home yet forced them to manage most domestic responsibilities. The wage disparity continues alongside reproductive rights, which face relentless debate and control from lawmakers who will never experience childbirth. Modern corporate America still views gender equality as a superficial public relations tactic while maintaining practices that keep women underpaid and underrepresented in leadership positions.
Classism in America functions as the country’s hidden caste system, which ensures that economic advancement remains rare rather than standard. The wealthy live in a reality that is entirely different from everyone else. The concept that someone can become a millionaire without help remains a myth. Wealth generates more wealth, while poverty represents an unending life sentence rather than a short-term problem.
The New Deal implemented by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression provided a temporary respite while attempting to create equitable opportunities. Despite these efforts during Roosevelt’s New Deal period, the Social Security Act did not apply to domestic and agricultural workers, mainly Black and immigrant employees. Black service members experienced discriminatory access to the GI Bill, which promised prosperity to veterans. Every opportunity is a strategic mechanism to benefit specific groups while forcing others into ongoing hardship.
The economic gap in modern America has transformed into an insurmountable divide. Despite wages failing to rise, living expenses continue to increase. Healthcare is a privilege, not a right. Student debt shackles an entire generation. The traditional American Dream of homeownership has become a fantasy beyond reach for millions of Americans. Billionaires experience exponential growth in their fortunes while benefiting from a lack of taxation and unrestricted power.
Our country does not stand upon principles of moral righteousness. A nation founded on exploitation hides behind a facade of freedom.
Despite its extensive proclamations of “We the People,” America never fully evolved into a nation representing its citizenry. The country has functioned as an exclusive domain ruled by wealthy elites. The workers and the marginalized who build and sustain society have existed merely as an afterthought and a necessary inconvenience to the power structure. Corporate and political forces have rebranded the adversities of workers and marginalized groups as acts of patriotism. They have claimed that the American spirit triumphs through their sacrifices. The system has covered its oppression with a deceptive promise of opportunity.
But the illusion is cracking.
The United States was never truly great — not for the millions who toiled in servitude, not for the generations locked into cycles of poverty, not for the countless lives lost to war, exploitation, and greed. True greatness escapes simplistic mottoes and statues dedicated to ancient conquerors. A nation that allows its children to starve, that denies medical care to its sick, and imprisons its poor while freeing its wealthy is not great. It is broken.
We can change our present situation.
History has never before seen us approach such a transformative moment. As the old order breaks apart, cracks become visible, and a fresh vision emerges. The people need not endure destinies determined by power-hoarding elites. People should not remain passive participants in someone else’s strategic plan. They can rewrite the rules. The people can reclaim the republic as their nation rather than as a corporate entity or an empire.
America has not yet reached greatness, but it possesses the potential to achieve it.
The nation will fail to achieve greatness despite its abundant riches or military conflicts. It will achieve greatness when children experience no hunger. It will reach greatness when street homelessness becomes nonexistent for families. Justice will prevail when it is no longer available for purchase by those who offer the most money. Democracy becomes meaningful as an everyday practice rather than a mere theatrical display.
The Constitution was not written for all. But it can be rewritten by all.
Power should not be owned by dynasties, corporations, or heirs to stolen wealth. It belongs to the people. America can finally fulfill its promises when people reject their role as machine parts used to oppress them.
The time for illusions is over. The time for revolution — for reclamation — is now.
America’s greatness is not lost — it was never realized. It’s time to change that. It’s time — simply put — to Make America.
The Culper
