Watson Events

Screening of Dream On, followed by discussion with producer and director Roger Weisberg; Mark Blyth, Eastman Professor of Political Economy and Professor of International and Public Affairs; and Susan Moffitt, Mary Tefft and John Hazen White Sr. Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy.

Dream On investigates the perilous state of the American Dream after decades of rising income inequality and declining economic mobility. In an epic road trip, political comedian John Fugelsang retraces the journey of Alexis de Tocqueville, whose study of our young country in 1831 came to define America as a place where anyone, of any background, could climb the ladder of economic opportunity. Following in the Frenchman’s footsteps, Fugelsang asks whether the optimistic spirit of the American Dream that Tocqueville popularized is alive and well in the twenty-first century, or whether George Carlin was right when he famously quipped, “It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

See the trailer here. 

Co-sponsored by the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy.