I live in a rented house with several other young folks trying to get by in our industry. I'm working today instead of taking a bus home to see my family. I'd work tomorrow if I needed to. My computer equipment is worth more than I have in the bank, because that's my capital investment in myself and my work.
My roommates are all fleeing rolling boulders of student debt--a situation I'm not in only because I devoted a sizeable chunk of my old salary to paying it off. Once that debt was paid off, I quit my job, because the company was never going to go anywhere with its attitude and codebase.
We don't have or want picket fences, we don't have two cars in the 'burbs, we don't want to sit in front of the TV and veg out. That's something we inherited from the boomers and Madison Avenue.
The people I know, whether they're architects, or lawyers, or coders, or dealers, or hustlers, all are in pursuit of the same dream that our forefathers pursued. We're all good people, with strong work ethics and a desire to see our kids grow up better than we did into a world kinder than ours.
We want to live in a country where you can build a business, help your community, and do so without worrying about getting blackbagged or destroyed by bureaucracy, where you can smoke a joint or drop acid and go into work that afternoon and change the fucking world with a commit or a hammer.
(And we're doing this in the Midwest, in Texas no less--no Bay Area bubble for these views!)
We aren't afraid of evil brown people somewhere else in the world, and we don't want to cast a "supporting vote" in a system as obviously corrupt and rigged as the current US government. We don't want to take away people's rights because we're afraid for our own little lives and our stuff from Ikea. We don't care about your abortion, or your sexuality, or whatever you do in your free time.
Don't tell me, don't show me, don't bloody try to sell me this notion that the American Dream is dead--we're just returning to its roots.