My core argument in this posting will be that multiculturalism is inherently contradictory to the founding principles of the United States. As it was initially conceived, becoming an American involved agreeing to a series of principles and ideals. A person did not have to be any particular nationality, speak a specific language, worship in a specified manner, or have a defined ethnic background. In order to be an American, all one had to do was to commit to the political ideology centered on the ideals of liberty, equality, and Madisonian Republicanism. That’s what it meant to be an American.
The universal ideological character of American nationality meant that it was open to anyone who ascribed to those ideals. To be an American meant to have access to the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to be able to participate in the political process and civic life unencumbered. But it also meant to subordinate past lives to the present. In the United States there were German-Americans, Italian-Americans, Scottish Americans, English Americans, Mexican-Americans, and so many more. But the foundation of all of these identities rested on the idea of allegiance to the founding principles of the country. Germans, Italians, Scots, English, Mexicans, and any of the other inhabitants of the global Tower of Babel could become Americans.
This idea is so solidly embedded in the founding principles of the country that the motto on the Great Seal of the United States is a Latin phrase, E pluribus unum, which translates into English as “from many, one”. The strength of the United States, and indeed its unique character in human history, rests on the idea that allegiance to a series of ideals is the principal requirement for attaining citizenship.
The founders of the country took specific steps to avoid regionalization and the rise of political parties. Their fear was that the country would devolve into a kind of Balkanization of interests. They attempted to fashion a government which would make such disintegration of the social compact difficult. But, beginning in the 1960s, the defenses that they put in place began to unravel.
The country had just come through the Great Depression and World War II. The people had united behind a common cause of defeating National Socialism in Europe and Japanese aggression in Asia. Presidents such as FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower led a nation of Americans, proud to be Americans.
But beginning with the election of Kennedy, the country began to divide into sub-tribes. At first, the effort seemed egalitarian. The objective was to lift up the oppressed and to move towards a more perfect union. With Kennedy, and later Johnson, the Civil Rights acts and the Voting Rights acts worked to end segregation and extend the benefits of American citizenship. These were noble undertakings and had a significantly positive impact on minority groups. The progress that was made lifted up millions of citizens and opened opportunities that had been previously closed to their ancestors.
But there were unintended consequences. The effort highlighted differences and, even though the intentions behind those efforts were good, it was the differences that survived. The clear intentions of the activists in those days was to benefit the least in American society but, in doing so, they unintentionally froze in place ethnic differences and overturned the very idea of America as a melting pot.
This departure from the founding ideals of Madison’s Republic was spearheaded by the Democratic Party, a party which, by the late 1950s, had become known as the party of the working class.
The erosion of this role began slowly. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Democratic Party gradually Balkanized the idea of America. They replace the focus of the foundational definition of Americans as Americans by making them Africans, Germans, Italians, Scots, English and the rest. Now you were an African American or Latino American. And it didn’t make any difference whether you subscribed to the founding ideas of the country, you are an American by citizenship and still African or Latino.
From the 1960s on, the heroes of the Democratic Party are the ones who increasingly contributed most to the Balkanization of American society and the decline of the founding definition of what it meant to be an American.
By 1993, when Bill Clinton became President, the pattern was well established. Clinton still presented himself as the champion of the working class, as did his party, but the policies he pursued worked against their interests. Two examples will suffice. The first was the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA, which resulted in massive exporting of manufacturing jobs and an even more massive impact on the balance of power between capital and labor. The biggest impact was on manufacturing jobs in the heartland. Towns died, families were displaced, and the bleed of voters from the Democrats to the Republicans accelerated.
The second example was Clinton’s repeal of the Glass Steagall Act of 1933, an act that was put into effect in the aftermath of the great depression to protect the deposits of citizens by building a firewall between retail and investment banks. In his signing statement, Clinton wrote that such a repeal would “enhance the stability of our financial services system” by permitting financial firms to “diversify their product offerings and thus their sources of revenue” and make financial firms “better equipped to compete in global financial markets. Notice the focus on global financial markets, corporations and their profits. And the lack of focus on the interests of the working class. The financial crisis of 2008 was made far worse by the removal of the firewall and millions of Americans – mostly working class – lost their homes and life savings.
The years after he left office saw the growth of the Clinton Global Initiative. It was not lost on working class voters that the focus of the organization was international rather than national. In the time between Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, an ex-president went from building houses for the homeless to jet setting to Davos to hobnob with the ultra-rich.
The Presidency of Barack Obamas was eight years of mostly missed opportunities. No Drama Obama did manage to sign the Affordable Care Act, but that was mostly attributable to superior leadership in the congress. Even though it was clear that it would help the Democrats, neither Puerto Rico nor DC were admitted as states. Even though the Republicans had been signaling for decades that they intended to overturn Rove v Wade, no action was taken to protect reproductive rights. The administration got outmaneuvered on Supreme Court nominations and was slow to fill judicial vacancies. And Obama seemed more interested in global issues than the interests of the working class. The Democratic party leadership had become thought of as the jet setters with little interest in the constituency that had formed the foundation of their party for decades. Unlike the Clinton coalition, which lasted through much of his second term, the Obama coalition broke apart in less than two years. The voters, particularly working-class ones, had enough of multi-cultural, globalism. They were hurting and silk-stocking Democrats didn’t seem to really care.
By the end of Obama’s second term, the Democratic coalition was solidly partitioned into sub-tribes. Both politicians and left-leaning talking heads reinforced the idea that the party was supported by groups more defined by ethnic backgrounds, skin color, sexual preference, religious preference or aversion, and levels of educational achievement. The idea that a coalition could be built and maintained had become an accepted given. The idea that candidates for president were some sort of rock stars dominated political strategy. Now, instead of finding and leading a naturally occurring coalition, they would simply build one. The 2024 election should have put that hubris-laden fantasy to rest for good. But …
The loss by Hillary Clinton to a realty TV star and grifter, and the failure of the Bidan Administration to regain the allegiance of the working class are further examples that the Democratic strategy to leverage multi-cultural coalitions into a winning team is a major loser in national politics. The actions, or lack thereof, by Joe Biden in early 2024 simply drove another nail in the coffin. He came off as a self-absorbed, doddering old man who had, out of ego, reneged on a promise to be a one-term, transitional president. In short, he came off as how the working class had increasingly come to see the Democratic party. And the reason why is uniquely American. The opposition found a naturally occurring coalition that is based on a foundational concept of the country – a shared interest during times of hardship.
The principal driver of voter dissatisfaction in the United States is a rapidly expanding income and wealth inequality. As the ultra-rich control most of the economy, the political system and the courts, ordinary citizens have come to realize that the game is rigged against them. They band together in a national coalition and look for a leader who will, at least in their words, understand their pain and act to ease it. And, as the results of the 2024 election shows, they do not think that the Democrats would do that. Left with only Trump, they selected the lesser of two evil evils.
Here, at the end of this post, I suppose I am expected to try to find a silver lining. But I can’t, because I think of the situation that members of Generation Z find themselves in. Ask yourself, what was the American Dream?
You get a good education without going deeply into debt, find a good job, get married, buy a home and car, raise a family on a single income, take an annual vacation, and put aside enough to both retire comfortably and leave something to your kids. How much of that do you think Gen-Z will have. They either can’t afford a college education or are indentured by the debts of getting one, the job market is packed with menial, repetitive jobs, most can’t imagine getting married, let alone starting a family, buying a house is out of their reach, they are living paycheck to paycheck – as are roughly 60% of American families – with no savings and not much chance of building for retirement, they despair for their future. Given that, do you think they will eagerly support a party that seems more interested in pronouns and stupid slogans like “defunding the police”, than their challenges? Do you think some over-the-hill jackass calling them snot-nosed kids, and dismissing their concerns, will impress them?
Yes, you say? Then I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I can get you at a bargain-basement price.
© Earl Smith