This is a must-read article by US Senator Cory Booker, published by by think-tank, Brookings. There’s an alternative to the prejudiced rhetoric of both the Far Right and the Far Left.
“There is no reason that a country as rich and as powerful as ours should have to choose between great wealth for the few and great opportunity for all of its citizens.” @CoryBooker explores how to renew the American Dream: https://t.co/lfXqSXjnEn pic.twitter.com/9r1dQgfDz4
— Brookings (@BrookingsInst) June 30, 2018
Dr Alf's Blog 
This is an excellent piece via Dr Alf which is full of great hope,soaring rhetoric and trips down memory lane.
As someone who became an American citizen in the 1980’s I can relate to Cory Booker’s stories but I’m afraid that while I share his sentiments his article is not rooted in practical reality and misses out important facts.
America is no longer alone as the sole superpower on the planet,it has rivals ,rivals who are more disciplined,much more hard working,more productive and who can turn out more engineers,more scientists and more mathematicians in a year than the entire American population.
Many of America’s innovative companies are run by Indians or other foreigners,Microsoft,Google are 2 notable examples. Then when we look at graduates in hard mathematical and scientific disciplines we find the same thing via the special visa that foreign students have to have to study in America.
America and the West can create wealth by innovating faster than its biggest competitors and by one means or another upskilling its people.
It is failing to do so with its own people but relies instead on attracting foreign students who then go on to do the innovating.
America is not exporting enough and in those areas where it does the companies concerned,Apple,Facebook,Microsoft,Google,Twitter,Pinterest,Lockheed Martin etc very little if any corporation tax is paid.
Cory Booker has nothing to say about automation,machine learning,robotics,AI,3D printing or the Opiates crisis which between them will eliminate 50% of American jobs by 2033 and have lowered current worker productivity to 5th globally.
Promising to “bring the jobs back”,”stop China from eating our lunch” and trade wars are not going to help very much ,nor is living in the past and writing about Cory Booker’s father as an IBM top salesman.
The reality is that external sales utilisation has fallen to a nett figure of 10% and just 1 salesperson in 250 in America or anywhere else on the planet consistently hits their monthly target.
According to Miller Heimann a top American sales training organisation the percentage of external salespeople hitting their annual sales quota is falling inexorably every year.
This is because of the internet,better informed buyers,multi faceted decision making processes,more choice,people wanting to make up their own minds and less deference to salespeople.
Renewing the American dream is going to take a realisation that there is no free lunch and that a large number of people are going to have to live self sufficiently “off grid”,that others will need Universal Income and that the gap between those at the top and those at the middle and bottom will need to close through fairer tax arrangements.
Directors who solely rely on home markets will have to be encouraged to export where practicable and energy self sufficiency will have to be the watchword.
Relying on the Petrodollar,an over large military seizing oil and raw materials and currency manipulation will not be the answer nor will de industrialisation of the kind engineered by Druids and people like Etienne Davignon a man most Americans have never heard of.