"What makes an American?"
We've been fighting over this question for years now. Still, with the Right largely making the rules now, the fight over the question has become even more intense between Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians.
The fight became intense enough that people like entrepreneur and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have been swamped with pushback for his stance on welcoming as many people from other countries as possible to fill jobs, arguing that if they believe in the American way, then they are American.
In fact, he wrote an entire piece in the New York Times to say that, where he wrote:
Americanness isn’t a scalar quality that varies based on your ancestry. It’s binary: Either you’re an American or you’re not. You are an American if you believe in the rule of law, in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, in colorblind meritocracy, in the U.S. Constitution, in the American dream, and if you are a citizen who swears exclusive allegiance to our nation.
He's not wrong. I agree with him completely, but I think there's more to it than that, and recent events have proven this to be something I, myself, have thought a lot about. Honestly, if you had asked me this question five years ago, I would have answered the exact same way.
But this is just kind of an avenue toward something like membership. I'm not sure it makes one an American. By this standard, anyone could come to the United States and just slap the label of "American" on themselves.
SEE: Trump Teases the 2026 'America 250' Celebrations: 'You've Never Seen Anything Like It'
Trump White House Address Touts Administration's Domestic Wins, Announces Christmas Bonus for Troops
In my opinion, Americanness is also a civic expectation you uphold. Yes, the United States is a hodgepodge melting pot of ideas, cultures, traditions, and values, but while the contents are diverse, the pot itself still requires a sort of cultural conformity. More and more, I'm seeing this conformity being rejected despite "allegiance" to our nation. They don't want to melt in the pot; they want to keep the pot unheated and become more like a salad where their flavor dominates over others.
While it's not wrong to bring your customs with you, your food preferences, your gods, and other things, what's still necessary is that you adhere to a pre-established cultural style of interaction based on what are essentially Judeo-Christian principles. This doesn't mean you have to adopt Judeo-Christian beliefs, but there is an underlying current that flows through every interaction, every contract, and every transaction.
These are civic instincts that you have to abide by to truly become an American, because failure to do so disrupts that flow and betrays your vow to help move this country along on the successful path that it's already established. Coming to this country and attempting to transform it fundamentally, as many cultures do, is not allegiance to America, but to your old-world ways that you're supposed to leave behind.
And I see this in so many ways. Many members of the Islamic community are perfectly happy to obey the American Constitution, meritocracy, and take part in the American dream, but their idea of improving America is to turn it into a theocracy where the freedom of expression is reformed, and the American dream turns into a nightmare.
See, the issue is that the "American dream" or "American way" is too nebulous an idea. Anyone can come in and interpret it however they please. There has to be a standard definition that defines Americanness, and it was established at its founding. It stemmed from a belief system that gave the maximum amount of freedom without leaning into chaos or allowing that freedom to be taken advantage of by ideas and traditions that would attempt to overwhelm the established system.
Belief in that idea is ultimately Americanness. The submission to an ideological system born from Judeo-Christian customs. You still need all the things Ramaswamy detailed, to be sure, but underneath that is the inescapable mentality and expectation you must have or else this doesn't work. You don't work.
