The Idea of America

Today, we return to our roots…and go back into the rut of the entire nation.

The proximate cause of this backtracking lies in the growing calls for the US to become a different kind of country. The US should not be open to all, says VP J.D. Vance, but only to a ‘particular people,’ with a particular program, that is…to the people favored by J.D. Vance. TPM:

“Identifying America just with agreeing with the principles, let’s say, of the Declaration of Independence — that’s a definition that is way over-inclusive and under-inclusive at the same time,” Vance said.

He explained that such a definition “would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions of foreign citizens who agree” with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, dubbing it “the logic of America as a purely creedal nation.”

Vance mistakes the US for a nation state. A nation state is bound together not by creed, but by ‘blut und boden,’ blood and soil; it was a popular theme in the 1930s, east of the Rhine at least. Citizens are meant to be connected to one another by a common history, language, culture, race and so forth.

The classic example is France. Since the days of Louis 14^th, it occupies a fairly fixed territory where the French live, speak French, eat cheese and take lots of holidays.

According to the Vance-Theil-Karp faction…America should be more like France, but for Americans only. Not everyone can participate.

The second part of the program is a plan…a masterplan. A strategy for the future. And today, that means an industrial policy that combines not church and state, but our faith in technology with the taxpayers’ money. Tanner Greer:

‘Technological development is only possible when a governing coalition commits to it; potential coalition members must be courted and convinced.’

This is not a new idea. But, as we explained in our 2003 not-quite-classic, The Idea of America, the concept contradicts what America is meant to be. America is not for a special group of people; it’s a place for people who want to be special.

And whatever it was meant to be, it doesn’t seem to be what people are looking for now. Polls show that as many as 40% of America’s young people say they’d rather live in a foreign country. Many are the reasons given — crime, poverty, expensive medical care…etc. And since we have spent most of the last 30 years outside the US we’re often asked ‘Why did you leave America?’

“We didn’t leave America…it left us,” we explained to a group of Americans in Dublin.

Maybe it’s because we spend so much time overseas — outside, looking in — that we see things differently. But the America of 2025 isn’t the America of the ‘60s…or ’70s…or even ‘80s.

“So, we stand before you not as a turncoat or a runaway, but as a left-behind.”

We first left the US in the early 1990s. We merely intended to explore other places…and learn what we could about the way other people lived. But then it got to be a habit. And the years went by.

And now, after so much of our adult life spent elsewhere, we feel like a Japanese soldier forgotten on a remote atoll. We keep our rifle in good working order, but the fight was lost a long time ago. The Homeland moved on to McDonalds and avocado-on-toast…while we stuck to the old tin can rations — old truths, the old values…and the old Constitution.

“The country moved on. We stayed behind. And now, we are more authentically American than almost anyone in the country,” we challenged the crowd. “From the backwoods of Kentucky to the glitzy streets of Las Vegas…who still believes in limiting the power of the central government? Who still believes that America is place where you can do what you want to do…and be who you want to be?

“In all of Congress, you probably won’t find more than one or two who still believe in balanced budgets and states’ rights. Neither the president nor the Vice President do. And no candidate for high office dares even read, perhaps with a flashlight, under the covers, the Declaration of Independence.

“But still, it fills our heart with patriotic pride when we see that flag flying…

The old banderole…the heraldic banner of Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron of Baltimore…the flag of Maryland.

More to come…