AMERICA – DREAM AND REALITY

Docu series | 3 x 45 min | ZDF | Beetz Brothers | Co-author: Jens Strohschnieder

In 2026, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. How are the nation’s core values of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” – promised by the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 – faring today? How much remains of the “American Dream” in a country that is more deeply divided than it has been in decades? Personal experiences of very different people and analyses by experts combine to create a multi-voiced portrait of the United States.

America – Dream and Reality: Division

“We the People” – with these words the U.S. Constitution begins. The second part of the series asks: In this nation of immigrants, who belonged from the very beginning, and who did not? Was the promise “We the People” ever meant for everyone after independence 250 years ago? Or was this immigrant nation always also a nation of exclusion? Does immigration create diversity, while at the same time fueling social conflict?

Pamela Hemphill was there on January 6, 2021, when the Capitol was stormed. Today the “MAGA granny” deeply regrets having taken part. What drove her back then? And what has changed for her since? The ZDF documentary follows her on her return to Washington – five years after that day that shook America.

In Portland, demonstrators face off night after night. Some protest against the deportation practices of the U.S. president and the immigration authority ICE, fighting for the rights of immigrants. Others see them as “terrorists” out to destroy America. From the beginning, Americans have seen it as their right to own firearms – to defend themselves if necessary, and as a symbol of freedom, anchored in both the Bible and the Constitution. In Virginia, they take to the streets to defend semi‑automatic rifles, and by now even people who never would have touched a gun in the past are taking up arms.

“All men are created equal” – on this ideal the Declaration of Independence was founded 250 years ago. But who did it truly apply to? The Founding Fathers who wrote about equality owned enslaved people themselves. Historian Keisha N. Blain emphasizes that Black Americans have repeatedly taken the founding documents at their word: “Black communities have taken that ideal seriously, even when the state excluded them.” In Boston, social worker Abrigal Forrester shows how the traces of this history continue to shape young people’s lives today. Political scientist Yuval Levin recalls that the Declaration of Independence formulated “a commitment to equality” that still serves as a benchmark.

Morris Pearl is a multimillionaire and former BlackRock executive. He once helped make sure that banks were rescued from crises. His conclusion since then: “The financial system shaped by the United States saves the big players and leaves the little ones out in the rain.” Today Pearl campaigns for higher taxes on wealth because he believes the system will otherwise lead to unrest. His story makes clear that the United States is struggling not only with social and political division, but also with the economic gulf between rich and poor.

Experts such as Keisha N. Blain, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Yuval Levin, Rachel Tausendfreund, and ZDF correspondent Elmar Theveßen explain how the great promise of independence turned into a country as deeply polarized as rarely before.

America – Dream and Reality: Freedom

The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday and its “American Dream”. But what has become of the promise of freedom since independence? What did freedom mean then, and what does it mean today?

The Founding Fathers of the United States proclaimed equality for all, yet people of color are still fighting for their place in society. And what does social cohesion look like when civil liberties are increasingly curtailed?

Dr. Sheila Nazarian has actually achieved her personal “American Dream”: a Jewish Iranian who became a successful plastic surgeon in Los Angeles with her own Netflix series. As a proud American and committed Trump supporter, she embodies a migrant success story in the docu series.

But what does it mean to be American when your ancestors were brought to the country in chains, like Joycelyn “Joy” Davis, a descendant of those enslaved on the last known slave ship, the “Clotilda”? Or when your ancestors were already there long before the United States existed? Celestine Stadnick belongs to the Lakota, an Indigenous minority, and lives in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota – the poorest region in the country. She takes the film team to Wounded Knee, where a massacre of her people took place in 1890.

In Arkansas, Eric Orwoll lays the foundations for a settlement where only white, Christian, heterosexual Americans are welcome. For him, there are too many immigrants from “foreign cultures” – America, he believes, must return to its roots. Eric sees himself in the tradition of the European settlers who colonized the land from the 17th century onward, found their fortune in the New World, and fought for independence from the then superpower England in 1776.

Political scientist Sudha David‑Wilp sees in people like Eric a new wave of old thinking: “The idea that America belongs to a white majority runs like a red thread through history – it never completely disappears, but keeps reappearing in new forms.”

America looks very different in New York’s Chinatown. Paul Eng continues to run his grandfather’s tofu shop. His grandfather came to America in the 1930s via Cuba because the Chinese Exclusion Act at the time barred Chinese people from immigrating. Paul, successful and integrated, now sees himself as the first true American in his family.

Experts such as historian Jill Lepore and renowned journalist Rieke Havertz provide context: the promise of freedom has been contested from the very beginning.

America – Dream and Reality: Power

The U.S. superpower has become both a model and a bogeyman. The third episode asks: What responsibilities come with this power? And are the United States living up to them?

America has shaped politics, economics, and culture across the globe and long saw itself as a pioneer of democracy. But what remains of the “American Dream” when the nation is wrestling with internal division, a loss of trust, and mounting global headwinds? Two hundred and fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, the moral foundation is crumbling. The ZDF documentary tells revealing stories from the United States and draws a line back through history, while experts offer in‑depth analysis.

How do you balance interests and ideals when President Trump threatens millions of people in Iran with death? For the first time, it seems that security and democracy are no longer at the forefront, but sheer dominance. The film explores to what extent, in the past as well – in the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, or the “War on Terror” in Afghanistan – military and power‑political superiority have been defining drivers.

Dave Guerra served as a soldier stationed in Germany in the 1980s. His family has a long military tradition: both grandfathers fought in the Second World War, one uncle in Vietnam, another in Korea. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers still represent American interests abroad today. What does it mean to project this power into the world? And what changes when soldiers do not return because they have fallen in war? Does the superpower then reach its limits, and how has the once positive image of America turned negative?

With the rise of the “America First” movement, the balance of power is also shifting at home. Big Tech has become indispensable in the United States, and digitalization is emerging as the superpower’s most important battlefield. In Silicon Valley, the new generals are at work.

Sebastian Thrun, former vice‑president of Google, was part of this enormously successful development. The story of the self‑driving taxis he helped develop in San Francisco stands for the technological know‑how and economic might on which the United States’ prosperity rests – and with which the country consolidates its dominance.

For decades, the United States has also expanded its global presence through aid programs. Under Trump, this balance shifted. In Ecuador’s capital, funding for a shelter for girls is cut, while at the same time President Donald Trump has Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro arrested. Jose Antonio Colina, a former soldier threatened with death by the Venezuelan government, sees Trump as a liberator. The old Monroe Doctrine – America as global policeman – lives on. But does the U.S. intervene where human rights are at stake, or where its economic interests are on the line?

Historian Jill Lepore describes U.S. foreign policy as a constant balancing act between idealism and self‑interest. Historian Volker Depkat points out that U.S. interventions have always been shaped by domestic conflicts as well. ZDF correspondent Elmar Theveßen observes from Washington how America is changing; the documentary follows him at work in the U.S. capital. Theveßen warns that if America betrays its own values and turns into an authoritarian system, “it will lose its radiance as a beacon of freedom.”