America as an Idea and Immigration Policy: Who Can Become American?

If America is an idea, rather than a people, does that mean we should welcome into the country people who don’t share the idea?

There’s a long-standing and probably never-ending debate on the right about whether America is fundamentally a people or an idea. Are we a unique “propositional nation,” founded on a creed, or does our creed flow from our people and their ways? To some extent, as I’ve argued before, this is a fight between two strawmen: We are obviously both. But while the roots of the American idea had to come from a specific people and their particular Western, Christian, Anglo-Saxon heritage, I incline more toward the view of the nation they made as an idea with a people than as a people with an idea.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Declaration of Independence

If America is an idea, rather than a people, does that mean we should welcome into the country people who don’t share the idea?

There’s a long-standing and probably never-ending debate on the right about whether America is fundamentally a people or an idea. Are we a unique “propositional nation,” founded on a creed, or does our creed flow from our people and their ways? To some extent, as I’ve argued before, this is a fight between two strawmen: We are obviously both. But while the roots of the American idea had to come from a specific people and their particular Western, Christian, Anglo-Saxon heritage, I incline more toward the view of the nation they made as an idea with a people than as a people with an idea.