Zohran Mamdani offered his vision of the American Dream in an interview this week with comedian and podcaster Theo Von, revealing the fundamental divide between conservatives and progressives, a divide that is rapidly fading.

According to the New York City mayor, the American Dream still exists, but it has been reduced to little more than an ideal, when, Mamdani argued, it should stand as a guarantee. His answer suggested that government's proper role is to restore that foundation of American life, the prospect of success in each of our own unique rights, as a guarantee.

"Do you think that the American dream is even, is still alive even, but we'll bring up what is the American dream?" Theo Von asked. "People have damn forgot what it is."

"The American dream is the belief that anyone in the United States, regardless of where they started, should have a fair chance to build a better, freer and more fulfilling life through ability, effort, and opportunity," Mamdani replied. "It's an ideal, not a guarantee. Look at that second sentence. I think in many ways that is the issue."

"A fair chance?" Von asked. 

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"No, it is an ideal, not a guarantee," Mamdani said.

"[The American Dream is] slipping away and it doesn't feel real anymore. It feels like a thing you can believe in, not a thing you can live. And it needs to be, it needs to be a guarantee. If something is just an ideal, it starts to lose its worth. I mean, think about democracy. A lot of people talk about democracy now as an ideal or as a value. And to somebody who can't afford their groceries, they're like, what do I care about a value? What do I care about an ideal?"

Mamdani is certainly right in one respect: for the common man, the American Dream increasingly feels out of reach. But that does not mean it must become a government guarantee. A guarantee requires several things, each morally wrong not to mention fundamentally at odds with the principles of our treasured Revolution. It requires government to take from some to provide for others. And it gives government the power to define the American Dream, before imposing that vision on everyone else.

Our country was founded on freedom and on the ideal of the “pursuit of happiness”: that every person should be free to pursue his or her own dream. In spite of Mamdani and his progressive vision, that requires less government, not a guarantee, but a promise.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those were Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence, and they underscore what many now miss: Americans are guaranteed Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, not happiness itself, and certainly not a government-defined version of it. 

The Declaration frames government’s legitimate purpose as securing those rights, with its power derived from the consent of the governed. The American Dream, then, depends on what we do: how hard we work and the lives we build. Government should not make those choices for us; it should get out of the way so that our actions determine our success. 

And yet, the longer our nation has endured, the more government has distorted the jobs we get, the jobs available, our ability to start businesses, how much of our own money we keep, and where the money it takes from us goes. It taxes money every time it changes hands and still cannot deliver anything resembling the American Dream. 

So the answer is simple: if we want to achieve the American Dream, get the government the hell out of the way.