There Is No Such Thing as a Hyphenated American

As it pertains to the stability of multiethnic republics, academics and policymakers in the West tend to concern themselves exclusively with the development of shared institutions designed to enforce tolerance through the protection of individual rights. A citizen’s attachment to an external homeland, on the other hand, is often treated as a matter of heritage that the state has no business in.

The status quo is not tenable. These republics, now faced with a rapid reorganization of the international order, are forced to confront the reality that states bargain continuously, exploiting whatever leverage they can find. States with commonly held cultures of divided loyalties, especially loyalties to an external homeland, are guilty of providing rival states with leverage through constituencies whose grievances they can sponsor and whose allegiance they can claim. Should we want our republic to survive, we will have to extend the state’s duties beyond the protection of rights and norms of tolerance by placing equal importance on securing the political loyalty of our citizens to the common polity.

In 1915, former President Theodore Roosevelt addressed the New York chapter of the Knights of Columbus, at the time a heavily Irish, Catholic fraternal order.^[1] Just a few months earlier, 128 American citizens crossing the Atlantic on a commercial passenger ship had been slain when a German U-boat attacked the vessel R.M.S. Lusitania. Given the political state of affairs in the British Isles during the early 1900s, it should come as no surprise that Americans of Irish heritage would often organize against Britain. German-American associations were actively pressuring Washington to stay out of the war. Roosevelt told his compatriots: “Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as anyone else… For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to American institutions.”^[2] Roosevelt understood the dangers of a second political will taking hold in this growing nation of immigrants, where Americans put the interests of foreign powers before those of their fellow countrymen. To him, the hyphenation of American identity was merely a proclamation of secondary allegiance.

I draw on an important distinction between affection and obligation. This is not a call for an American to divest himself of his ancestry, but rather to recognize that the interests of the republic are superior to those of the old country. We provide second political wills with fertile ground in which to emerge when external homelands become the authority by which American political decisions are judged, regardless of the consequences a fellow citizen may face. This does not equate to mere disagreement over national policy. Our republic provides for citizens to debate amongst themselves what serves the national interest, it requires, however, that they remain committed to it. Absent this commitment, what governs the consideration of these interests should two countries diverge?

Foreign states carry the natural advantage. A foreign leader who can assert that populations abroad belong to his own national polity claims the authority to act in the protection of their interests. Nor need these populations endorse such a relationship for it to form. The foreign interest in question will naturally organize amongst the constituency whose allegiance is subsequently invoked, turning a spontaneous expression of ancestral attachment to a foreign land into an instrument of another state.

Hobbes was correct to identify government as “that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence.”^[3] In a divided state whose people fail to recognize themselves as one, the citizenry will not be able to distinguish between friend and enemy, leading to the ultimate collapse of the state’s monopoly on violence.

We do not need to wait for these divisions to end in violence however before we see them undermine the republic's capacity to govern. Natural to representative government is the condition of accepting decisions one opposes and of contributing where one may receive little immediate benefit. Through shared national membership we provide a reason to view these burdens as contributions to one's own country, rather than as bargaining concessions amongst strangers. Absent this recognition, lawful decisions will struggle to command cooperation. Should the republic continue to ensure a space for disagreements on public policy, it will require absolute agreement that such questions concern a future in which citizens remain responsible together.

Progressive intellectuals have continuously fought for the dissolution of this identity, forming a resistance to any definition of national culture in the name of inclusivity, without ever answering the necessary precursor: inclusion into what? In tolerating everything, they have hollowed out the heart of our republic’s youth, teaching them to believe nothing. It is foolish to believe that under these conditions the state will be able to maintain the allegiance of this generation.

By continuing the progressive agenda as it pertains to identity, we will leave the soul of the state open to organized claimants who seek to fill it. This is not to say that the progressives are allies of a foreign united front, but rather that they serve a complementary function by washing away the individual’s Americanism.

As such, we must define inclusion to mean membership amongst a people who regard the security and future of this republic as a common responsibility, and whose members carry a shared knowledge of our national history, competence in the functions of our institutions, and a natural obligation to fellow countrymen beyond convenience. Our country becomes a mere economic zone only when viewed as a collection of entitlements. However, in the light of a people who sustain its institutions and correct its failures, whether they be native-born citizens or naturalized ones, we can hope to maintain its identity. Critical to the continuance of our national project will be our ability to argue for what Americans owe one another, should we expect a new generation to adopt such obligations.

Younger generations of Americans are increasingly unable to define themselves. A majority find themselves divided on the most important values, with a minority recognizing the importance of patriotism.^[4] It is these same generations who will have to face a world that will accentuate the dangers of second political wills. Having had the unique experience of growing up in a world enjoying something akin to a unipolar holiday, they have not had to confront serious choices between the domestic interest and the interests of what they perceive to be their external homelands.

Hard policy will come with concentrated costs, costs that will only be borne should we be able to recognize the same enemy and the same peace. One does not need to immediately assume these demands require a disposition to go to war or to serve in the public sector. These demands will require a people willing to sustain support for the republic as the fuel for political needs expires with election cycles. A portion of the citizenry will bear immediate costs, while benefits may be distant or widely shared. Only allegiance to a common project will allow them to view those benefits as their own. Should a rival seek to threaten the republic, it would not need to capture our resources, only to render us politically incapable of sustaining their use.

As the next wave of revolutionary automation begins to overtake our lives, it is imperative we grasp this reality and break free from political correctness. Artificial intelligence, even if only in transition, will cause massive global labor displacement. Masses of our countrymen will have to re-skill, requiring some groups to carry others. Should we expect Americans to share the costs of these decisions, it is paramount that both the losers and the winners identify themselves as one people.

Social hierarchies being natural to human societies, it is under this understanding that we must not allow this expectation to be one-directional. Just as there will be losers in this transition, there will be winners, and it is this elite that must be ready to help its displaced countrymen find their place within the new economy. When a worker is displaced, he does not cease holding membership in the polity merely because his former labor is no longer profitable. Should the republic expect a regard for its progress amongst this class of people, it cannot impress upon them that they will be permanently excluded from its benefits. It is in identifying ourselves as a common people that the prospering elites will have to impose obligations upon themselves just as the ones that will be imposed on the struggling class.

Survival in this age will require hard power, a power we will only be able to wield if we define ourselves and accordingly demand adherence to that definition from our members. Absent that, I doubt our nation will be able to pursue the shared goals required to be victorious in the next age. Patriotism is not just political pageantry; it is the integral element our republic requires to concentrate its efforts.

The state will not be able to cultivate allegiance where only circumstance makes it necessary. The cultivation of such allegiance will also present its own set of challenges, yet the starting line is marked within our institutions of education: institutions which teach our history and our evolving constitutional order, for which students inherit responsibility. Only when these foundations are properly laid will Americans of different backgrounds be able to undertake their common obligations. The final piece in ensuring the lasting result of these efforts will be the disallowing of foreign governments' political representation in the internal affairs of the state, whether their agents be domestic or foreign. To allow any other nation helmsmanship over the national direction is to undermine the goal of common membership we seek to secure.

Under these proposed circumstances, the republic will demand that a citizen recognize America as his political home and will grant him full recognition of membership as one of its own. Ancestry will not mark him as foreign in the eyes of his fellow countrymen, nor will he be subject to the political authority of another government. The obligations borne are reciprocal, with the citizen accepting responsibility for the republic and the republic providing security for his equal membership.

Our shared values of rights and tolerance guide us on what we mustn’t do to our fellow Americans. However, they provide no answer to where one’s loyalties must lie. In securing political loyalty, the state does not demand a replacement of these rights, rather, it secures our multiethnic republic against rivals who may seek to weaponize our diversity.