This week, Axios ran a fascinating piece about the supposed “redefinition” of Americanism under President Donald Trump. Titled “Inside Trump’s American identity project,” Axios posited that “President Trump is wielding government power to enforce a more rigid, exclusionary definition of what it means to be American.” What would this new definition entail? “In MAGA’s telling, America is the heir to ancient European civilizations, built on a Judeo-Christian foundation of white identity, meritocracy, traditional gender roles, and the nuclear family,” says Axios. “These tenets are cast as universal truths – and mantras such as ‘America is an idea’ or ‘diversity is our strength’ are dismissed as liberal fictions.”
First off, America is heir to ancient European civilizations – particularly with reference to private property, the common law system, traditions of free speech and freedom of religion, among others. Second, America is built on a Judeo-Christian foundation. Third, America is built on the meritocracy, which argues that the best and most productive ought to succeed in a free system. America is built on traditional gender roles and the nuclear family, as is every successful society in history. While America is an idea – or a set of ideas – those ideas must be reified in institutions and human behavior. And the notion that any nation can be built on a completely specious phrase like “diversity is our strength” is counterintuitive at best.
So, what is Axios attempting to do? Axios is attempting to link actual traditional definitions of Americanism with white supremacy. Never mind that all the ideas Axios cites as “traditional” fundamentally reject ethnic identitarianism: equality before law, for example, presumes racial indifference; Judeo-Christian religion rejects racial classification; meritocracy is definitionally opposed to racial preferences; and traditional gender roles and the nuclear family are institutions held in common by people of all races. The goal is simple: a forced choice between “racism” and a left-wing definition of Americanism that bears zero weight.
This, presumably, is the real drive behind the left’s opposition to much of Trump’s policy. The same Axios piece posits that the Trump administration’s decision to screen incoming immigrants for “anti-American” ideology ought to be seen as an outgrowth of nativism rather than common sense; that opposition to radical sexual politics in our nation’s military is a manifestation of bigotry rather than reason; that restoration of classicism in architecture represents a return to racial exclusivity rather than taste. As the authors write, “MAGA’s utopia looks a lot like America in the 1950s – before the sexual revolution, mass immigration, the Civil Rights Act and expanded LGBTQ rights reshaped the country’s culture and demographics.”
Well, actually, MAGA’s utopia looks mostly like what most Americans think of as the American dream: upward mobility, solid family structure, safety in the streets, decent education, and a vibrant social fabric complete with community and church. The fact that so many on the left – and in the media – find this vision to be irredeemably “racist” demonstrates their utter disconnect with most Americans. And it’s why Trump is president for the second time.
Ben Shapiro is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author.
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The Axios article, plain and simple, is a classic case of Leftist gaslighting. They will never stop until they achieve their (Socialist Marxist Communist “utopia”) The people leading today’s Democrat Party are basically psychopaths.
DEI is not what it means.
“Diversity” is really Perversity
”Equity” is not about Equality at all.
”Inclusion” actually Excludes the majority of this country that rejected the policies of the Democrat Party platform in 2024.
If today’s Democrats regain power, they will turn this once great nation into a dystopian Hellscape.
Need proof? Look at some of the big cities in Gavin Newsom’s California (or any big city in a deep “blue” state.
The Left uses ‘Democracy’ as their catch-phrase… sadly it doesn’t mean the same thing to the Left that it means to citizens who love America. We are not a democracy. We are a Representative Republic..Dems HATE that.
When lewis and clark set out to explore the west technologies had barely advanced since Roman times with the exception of gunpowder. Some would argue the Romans were way ahead of us. They built aqueducts that both brought in fresh water and flushed away sewage. As late as the 1860s we were drinking from the same rivers we used as toilets. Lincolns son died as a result of this.
Then, in the span of a century came advances undreamed of before culminating in aircraft. Calvin Coolidges son died from blood poisoning easily cured with ten dollars worth of todays antibiotics. My point: most of the rest of the world was stagnant. Much still is today, but Europeans and their children created almost all of the advances taken for granted today, yet our kids and gkids are being taught the opposite.
Dare to speak into your descendants lives cause if you dont the marxists surely will.
It is a shame that “white supremacy” people still exist but those who are being influenced by the Adversary will pay the price in the future. Of course, in another article of today, there were “hippies” from the 1960s protesting in DC. Our Maker is laughing His Head off with all their stupidity. They won’t have much of a defense at their judgement when it comes.
Very good article Ben what you wrote here is appreciated
Before reading this article I was reading about Physiological Optics — in particular the topic of Temporal and Spatial ( time and space ) related matters .And how what we see with our eyes gets processed in our brain. The use of the word.”reify ” in the article is a good one — definition of reify being to make something abstract more concrete or real. This Diversity, equity, inclusion stuff is camouflage for corrupt ideas ,rooted in anti – American propaganda. It is twisted as a corkscrew and promotes communism. Straight talk is really great – especially when practiced by a President of the United States of America . Ronald Reagan ,and John F. Kennedy were straight talkers , straight thinkers both of them had a high regard for another President — Abraham Lincoln. The Gettysburg Address is a good example of what Lincoln was all about, as well as his inaugural
speeches. Back to the physiological optics for a moment – that is all about Truth – the signals sent to the brain – it doesn’t get any truer than that. What is seen is fact .If it is good or evil is for another process ,the moral aspect of things . Our perception of what goes on in this world is subjective to reasoning . The qualities that make for good character need to be appreciated in order to maintain Law and Order.Understanding is needed – it can be regarded as intelligence gathering and necessary to form strategies to deal with the corruption that is contrary to what is found in that great document – The Declaration of Independence. In the spirit of Faith, Family and Freedom.
I suggest President Trump find a large uninhabited island somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, buy it build a basic landing strip that can handle large cargo and passenger planes and begin establishing some basic infrastructure. Then, all those leftists who hate America can be given one-way tickets, free of charge, to that island where they can build their own utopia, as they see fit. They can receive all the illegal immigrants who come into America, all the leftist actors/actresses, all the demoncrat politicians to lead them, and they can live out their lives dealing with the gangs, criminals, trans/bionary people and corrupt politicians they desire to lead them. AOC could be their president and that mamdomi character could be VP. Of course, the US would have no diplomatic relationship with them and their “nation” and citizens would be labeled as enemies of the United States. Naturally, they leftists would refuse this idea because they know it would result in them killing each other. No, they want the benefits of American society and exceptionalism without actually acknowledging it.
communism is misidentification of everything they are cornered to define and is an open public admission they are losing. they CAN be defeated by their incorrect definitions also known as “woke-ism”.
Not so. Call names all you wish. It holds no water.
Crawl back under your rock so somebody can step on it.
Mike, you forgot again to take your medication, haven’t you
Many people do not want to hear the truth so they attack the messenger.
What Axios doesn’t get is that most of the policies they promote create division, stir up violence from their own side, and show up their own narrow prejudices. The Leftists who so vehemently promote those policies have been practicing divide and conquer so long that they are shocked that they are not winning. Any American with a real brain doesn’t want our country divided.
It would have been nice to have gotten a list of how the left wants to define Americanism. I’m sure its bad, but it would have been nice to see their words, as opposed to the authors interpretation of what they say. I’m not saying the author is wrong. But like a court case, the author is presenting “hearsay”. It’s always better to see the person supposedly saying something, actually saying it.
The left has nothing and you have everything. You have the presidency, all three branches of government, the courts. And yet every article on this site is still about how awful the left is, how they’re destroying America.
Because you have no values, no dreams, no love in your hearts. All you know how to do is hate. You’ve shredded the Constitution and any positive aspects of the American tradition, and most of you have alienated your own families in the process, such that the only people you see eye-to-eye with are strangers that you’ll never meet but who seethe with the same unquenchable black-hearted anger. Your children and grandchildren shake their heads and talk wistfully about you behind your back, hopeful that your beliefs are just the dementia talking. You think the online strangers will have your back, but they won’t. Soon enough you’ll find a reason to hate them and they’ll find a reason to hate you, and you’ll keep destroying each other until there’s no one left.