Vivek Ramaswamy Is Wrong About American Identity And America
A disembodied notion of American identity means that America is really nothing at all, and no one is really an American...
After World War Two, these questions were largely swept under the rug. The dominant narrative, pushed by nearly every mainstream institution and both political parties, was that America was a credal, propositional country. Anyone, from any part of the world, professing any religion or worldview, could become an American...
In an op-ed for The New York Times this week, Vivek Ramaswamy defends this view, arguing that being an American really means nothing more than assenting to a set of intellectual propositions and swearing allegiance to the United States...
In Ramaswamy’s telling, Americanness is based on a set of beliefs...
Ramaswamy presents a false binary: either you agree with American propositionalism or you are a racist...
But actually it’s possible, and in fact necessary, to insist on a synthesis of America as an idea, a proposition, and America as a people and a nation with a particular history and culture. That culture, because it is at its core English and Christian, requires an affirmation of a very specific set of intellectual propositions that are unique to England and the Christian faith that shaped the English...
The point here is that the universal ideals Ramaswamy claims are at the heart of American identity only make sense in light of English common law, constitutionalism, and Christianity - all of which belong to a particular people from a particular place. Without that context, they become meaningless. Generations of certain people, descendants mostly of the English, brought forth a nation that reflected and codified their particular religious beliefs, morality, language, customs, and folkways. They were not making a proposition for a universalist political project. Indeed, the Founders told us who America is for: ourselves and our posterity. John Jay famously described America as “one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs.”...
If anyone can be an American, then no one really is an American, and nothing in particular is owed to the American people by their leaders...
Related
Vivek Is Scamming Us, by Kevin DeAnna, American Renaissance, December 22, 2025:
... Mr. Ramaswamy may be thinking about a meme that sometimes appears online:
What is Mr. Ramaswamy trying to accomplish with this article? Follow in the long conservative tradition of trying to purge those to his right?...
Mr. Ramaswamy is right to say that many young Americans feel the loss of their national identity, but he warns against “tribalism.” National identity is tribalism. It is exclusive. An identity that can be chosen by anyone in the world means nothing...
The fundamental problem is that identity is not freely chosen... But you don’t become American with a job interview, a piece of paper, or an ideological test. It is a question of blood, history, and culture. Mr. Ramaswamy’s attempt to break America’s identity away from these fundamental realities is itself an exercise in identity politics. He’s trying to shoehorn himself and his subcontinental brethren into an American identity that he conveniently defines.
Pat Buchanan warned that:
Every true nation is the creation of a unique people. Indeed, if America is an ideological nation grounded no deeper than the sandy soil of abstract ideas, she will not survive the storms of this century any more that the Soviet Union survived the last. When the regime, party, army, and police that held that ideological nation together lost the will to keep it together, the USSR broke down along the fault lines of nationality, faith, and culture. True nations, held together not by any political creed but by patriotism, emerged from the rubble...
Nation precedes government, transcends politics, and outlasts any ideology. Like family, belonging is through blood, not abstractions. Mr. Ramaswamy is trying to talk us out of our birthright. It’s not up for debate. We do not need to engage with an outsider trying to deconstruct us...
American Ideals, by Sean Davis, X, 22 December 2025:
American ideals are a function of American culture, and American culture is a function of its people. The three together form the foundation of American greatness. They reinforce and amplify each other, and our country as it is cannot exist without each of them. Mass immigration undermines all three, especially when immigrants either despise our history and founders, reject our culture, or mock our ideals...
America will not survive if its own people are systematically replaced by those who view America as little more than a lootbox to be pilfered. It will not survive those who come here and immediately belittle our people and our culture. It will not survive invaders who refuse to learn the language, adopt our customs, or assimilate in any meaningful way...
All citizens have the same legal rights, but a first-generation citizen is *absolutely* less American than someone whose ancestors founded the nation, fought for its independence, explores its frontiers, blazed its trails, and created the kind of place that people all over the world want to immigrate to...
But we are a distinct people, and we are more than a piece of paper and more than a mere oath to be mouthed in a courthouse. And it sure would be nice if first-generation citizens had the humility to recognize this, to appreciate the sacrifices of those who built this country for their ancestors..
Language fluency is a well-known concept, but it is no less important than cultural fluency. And way too many people are abjectly failing that test.
Vance’s and Vivek’s Dueling Visions of America - Conservatives should reject Ramaswamy’s abstractions, by Andrew Day, 26 December 2025:
... Vice President J.D. Vance put forward a vision of American identity that was both unifying and authentically conservative. “Americans are hungry for identity,” Vance said... And he promoted a revival of Christianity as “America’s creed” and the historic “anchor of the United States of America.”
Ramaswamy scolded the far right for believing that a citizen could be more American or less American depending on how deeply rooted in the country they are...
In Ramaswamy’s telling, Americans are unique in comprising not so much a nation as a liberal ideological project...
First, one thing America conspicuously has in common with Italy and Germany—but not with China or Japan—is that its political elites have betrayed its people, flooding the country with young men from alien lands...
The entire Western world faces this crisis, an extinction-level event for the nations affected...
The Trump administration has gone much further than right-wingers expected in alerting Americans to the crisis of mass migration and the fragility of Western civilization. Vance especially has given this theme eloquent expression. Thanks to his efforts, the vision of American identity that Ramaswamy favors is one that conservatives, finally, have managed to leave behind. Given the urgency of the crisis that Westerners face, we can’t afford to bring it back.
The Forced Return to Tribalism, by E.M. Burlingame, The Burning Platform, 25 December 2025.
