Vance Does Not Get America

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

Matthew Continetti at AEI on J.D. Vance's "blood and soil" rhetoric:

In June, Vance made a similar argument in a speech to the Claremont Institute, whose mission is “to restore the principles of the American founding.” The institute might try starting with the vice president. If an American is simply someone who agrees “with the creedal principles of America,” Vance said, that would include “millions, maybe billions, of foreigners,” while excluding “a lot of people the ADL would label domestic extremists, even though their own ancestors were here at the time of the Revolutionary War.”

Excuse me? Why the gratuitous reference to the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization? And when did bloodlines trump lawfulness and reverence for the Constitution? There are more than a few American Jews whose ancestors lived in America during the Revolution. And certainly creedal principles mattered in
1776. The people who didn’t believe in them were called Tories. They became Canadian.

At the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., in early September, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri took up Vance’s line of thought. “We Americans,” he said, “are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith.”

Stirring rhetoric, I suppose. But isn’t Schmitt leaving a whole bunch of people out? Like: the descendants of African slaves brought here involuntarily long before his German ancestors arrived in Missouri in the 1840s. And: the descendants of Jewish and Chinese and Japanese and Mexican immigrants. And: the naturalized citizens who’ve arrived since the 1970s and taken an oath to “defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Ranking citizens by date of arrival has consequences. It creates a mirror-image identity politics as exclusive and unappetizing as the left-wing version. It empties civic nationalism of substance. It turns citizenship into Ancestry.com. It rejects all who believe that America represents something more than blood and soil—that it is the last best hope of earth.

Since Abraham Lincoln, Americans have read the Constitution through the lens of the Declaration—as a blueprint for the government of a national community that conceivably every person could join. Thus, after the Civil War and Reconstruction, citizenship became the criterion for belonging to the American People. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Their “privileges and immunities” cannot be abridged.

What a tragedy it would be if we spend the next year celebrating America’s birthday—only to forget what America means.

Religion in the States

 Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.

Chip Rotolo, Benjamin Wormald, Bill Webster and Justine Coleman:

Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study was designed to paint a statistical portrait of religion in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The study finds that Mississippi is the most religious state, Vermont the least. 

"Hate Speech"

From FIRE:

There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. So, many Americans wonder: Is hate speech legal?

Contrary to a common misconception, most expression one might identify as “hate speech” is protected by the First Amendment and cannot lawfully be censored, punished, or unduly burdened by the government — including public colleges and universities.

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly rejected government attempts to prohibit or punish hate speech. Instead, the Court has come to identify within the First Amendment a broad guarantee of “freedom for the thought that we hate,” as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes described the concept in a 1929 dissent. In a 2011 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts described our national commitment to protecting hate speech in order to preserve a robust democratic dialogue:

Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.

In other words, the First Amendment recognizes that the government cannot regulate hate speech without inevitably silencing the dissent and dialogue that democracy requires. Instead, we as citizens possess the power to most effectively answer hateful speech — whether through debate, protest, questioning, laughter, silence, or simply walking away.

As Justice Louis Brandeis put it, the framers of the Bill of Rights “believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.”

Justice Brandeis argued that our nation’s founders believed that prohibiting “evil counsels” — what today we might call hate speech — would backfire

:They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

Inequality and Politics

Many posts have discussed economic and educational inequality. The effects of inequality reach many corners of American life.

Dan Merica and Matthew Choi at WP:

One data point in our colleague Gaya Gupta’s write-up of recent findings by the Census Bureau stuck out to us: While most Americans’ household income remained steady or fell because of inflation last year, the wealthiest 10 percent of households saw their incomes rise.

That simple finding — which could easily be boiled down to the aphorism “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer” — explains so much about our populist politics at this moment, from the left gravitating to a strident anti-rich rhetoric and politicians who authentically understand their economic plight to the right embracing President Donald Trump and his simple political message that the system is rigged against most Americans.

It also explains why the cost of living and prices have been the most determinative issues in our politics in recent elections. That was true in 2024, when voters regularly ranked the economy as their most important issue, and the economy remains top of mind now. A study by the Pew Research Center in December found that only 30 percent of Americans are satisfied with their pay, particularly because it has not kept up with rising prices.

“It is reconstituting the types of political coalitions that can be made and changing what sort of policies and actions those voters want,” said Alyssa Cass, a longtime Democratic operative. “Candidates who are tapping into that are the ones who are succeeding most prominently and beating expectations.”

...

“Trump is the ultimate disrupter. And many people see him at the tip of the spear against the status quo,” said Jesse Hunt, another longtime Republican operative who has worked in committees and on campaigns. “That is really what he has done since he came down the escalator in 2015. And that gives him a deep connection with a lot of people who don’t feel like their concerns were heard or they were cared about.”

Hunt also argued that social media — and the way in which people let their friends and colleagues into their lives now — has exacerbated this divide. Before social media, people may have felt pressure to keep up economically with their immediate friends and neighbors primarily through word of mouth, Hunt noted. But when all people have to do is log on to a platform to see how those people are living, they receive broader, more in-depth insight into whether they are getting ahead or falling behind.

The Economic Value of College

Many posts have discussed economic and educational inequality. The effects of inequality reach many corners of American life.

Emily Peck at Axios:

The share of Americans who say college is "very important" plummeted over the past decade, new Gallup polling finds.

Why it matters: College may not live up to the American Dream that it promised in the past, and there are other pathways for success becoming more appealing for Gen Z, but in terms of lifetime earnings, a college degree is actually still incredibly important.

The big picture: There are plenty of reasons for the decline in perceived value among Americans.School is expensive, student loan debt is often onerous and job security for those with degrees has diminished— even more so with the advent of AI. Plus, at the moment new graduates are seeing higher unemployment rates.

There's also growing interest and appeal for young adults in the skilled trades — becoming plumbers, electricians, etc. — especially as AI appears to threaten white collar work.

Between the lines: There's also been loud criticism, particularly from conservatives, over the political leanings of universities, criticized as "elitist" "woke" "leftist," etc.Yet both Democrats and Republicans express far less support for higher education than they did more than a decade ago.

By the numbers: In 2013, 68% of Republicans said a college education was very important; this year that number fell to 20%, per Gallup.There's an even split between Republicans who say it's "not too important" (39%) and those who say it's "fairly important" (39%).Democrats went from 83% who said college was "very important" to 42%. Most, however, describe college as "fairly important."

Where it stands: College grads earn more than twice what high-school graduates make.The median income in a household headed by someone with at least a bachelor's degree was $132,700 last year — that's more than double the $58,410 median income of a household led by a high-school grad, according to Census income data released last week.

And earnings for college-led households have pulled away from the pack — rising more than 6% over the past two decades, compared with a 3% increase for high school graduates.

God Votes?

 Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.

Chip Rotolo at Pew:

What role do Americans think God played in the last two presidential elections? In a May 2025 survey, most U.S. adults say God played no role at all, while about a third say recent election results are part of God’s overall plan but don’t necessarily mean God approved of the winner’s policies. Very few say God chose the winners because of their policies.

 

RFK v. Pasteur

 Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.The greatest spreader of vaccine misinformation is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Sara Ashley O’Brien at WSJ:

Why do people get sick? Ask Robert F. Kennedy Jr., America’s highest-ranking public-health official, and he may chalk it up to their terrain.

For centuries, doctors and scientists have agreed that germs are the underlying cause of infectious diseases. Someone coughs on you, you get a cold. Drink raw milk, and you might end up with E. coli or listeria. This widely accepted truth is the basis of pasteurization, vaccines and antibiotics.


But Kennedy has long embraced ideas rooted in theories that run counter to germ theory and help explain his deep mistrust of vaccines and his efforts to remake the U.S. public-health system. Those efforts came to a head last week as the Trump administration fired the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other top officials quit their jobs in the midst of disagreements with Kennedy vaccine policy. On Thursday, Kennedy testified before a heated Senate panel about the administration’s health agenda and the recent staffing shake-ups.

“Secretary Kennedy is committed to building the healthiest generation in American history,” said Andrew G. Nixon, director of communications at the Department of Health and Human Services in a statement. “He is working to end the chronic disease epidemic and restoring trust in public health through transparency, gold-standard science, and evidence-based medicine.”

As chemist Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease was gaining traction in the 1800s, his rival Antoine Béchamp raised an alternative explanation: Disease, he said, was caused by the state of the body, which he referred to as the “terrain.” In his view, a strong inner environment, bolstered by nutritional food and a healthy lifestyle, could fend off illness.

Most doctors and scientists rejected Béchamp’s view, and the science of germ theory, bolstered by a German doctor named Robert Koch who identified bacteria that caused specific diseases like anthrax and tuberculosis, became a foundational piece of modern public health. Today scientists recognize that even healthy people can get sick when a virus infects them. But Béchamp retained a fringe following, one that has spread in the internet era. Kennedy’s critiques of germ theory reflect the persistent support of that sentiment.