I don't think the American Dream is dead, but is endlessly challenged and changing. If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I could be writing articles on here or that someone would make a $10,000 from a TikTok video, I would have laughed. New avenues to reach the American Dream are being forged each day, while some others are disappearing. We need to keep up with it. It's not so much "elites" holding people back, but more the inability to invoke ingenuity in an ever-changing environment. There's always going to be people and circumstances which place limits on us, but that is what actually provides the stage for us in overcoming them through innovation.