In my column on some people’s effort to make the status of “Heritage Americans” (i.e., descended from multiple generations on American soil) a basis for political and policy arguments, I observed that “there’s a motte-and-bailey quality to this argument, as if those of us who don’t buy it are claiming that having family roots in this country is entirely irrelevant.” I also noted that “making a political project out of Heritage Americanism is self-defeating,” and that America is more effectively held together by spreading its traditional and founding ideals (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the classical liberalism of the Founding, the Gettysburg Address, the great causes of our history, etc.). I’ve written about how we should, to fortify that national glue and keep it sturdier than mere ties of blood and soil, gear our immigration policy more toward bringing in people who share our ideas, remain grateful for our history, and keep alive what Reagan proposed in 1989 in the form of an “informed patriotism” that values the sacrifices made to bring us to this point.
Brianna Lyman’s response to me in The Federalist seems designed to prove my point about the motte and bailey:
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