Idea Nation: George Washington Ends J.D. Vance's Political Career with a Flourish

J.D. Vance argued passionately for a new nationalism at the Republican Convention in terms that demand a thoughtful response from the Founding Fathers, so I am pleased to introduce a new Founding Father GPT much fuller of fight than Trump and the Hulkster combined. But first, just in case you have not faced Vance's creation:?

?"One of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas like the rule of law and religious liberty -- things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation.

?"But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is in short, a nation. Now it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms. That's the way we preserve the continuity of this project from 250 years past to, hopefully, 250 years in the future.

?"Let me illustrate this with a story, if I may. I'm, of course, married to the daughter of South Asian immigrants to this country. Incredible people, people who genuinely have enriched this country in so many ways. Of course, I'm biased because I love my wife and her family but it's true.

?"Now when I proposed to my wife, we were in law school and I said, "Honey, I come with $120,000 worth of law school debt and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in Eastern Kentucky…. Now that cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky is near my family's ancestral home. And like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Now that's Kentucky coal country, it's one of the ten poorest counties in the entire United States of America. They are very hardworking people and they're very good people. They're the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their back, even if they can't afford enough to eat.

?"And our media calls them "privileged" and looks down on them. But they love this country, not only because it's a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home. And it will be their children's home and they would die fighting to protect it. That is the source of America's greatness.....

"Now in that cemetery, there are people who were born around the time of the Civil War. And if, as I hope, my wife and I are eventually laid to rest there and our kids follow us, there will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky. Seven generations of people who have fought for this country, who've built this country, who have made things in this country, and who would fight and die to protect this country if they were asked to.

"Now that's not just an idea, my friends. That's not just a set of principles, even though the ideas and the principles are great, that is a homeland. That is our homeland.

?"People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their homes. And if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first."

Washington Liberty Legator:

Senator Vance's vision of nationalism, while resonant with a call for unity and shared heritage, poses several significant risks that may undermine the foundational principles upon which our nation was built:

Vance’s emphasis on a homogeneous national identity threatens the unity and cohesion of our Republic. In my Farewell Address, I emphasized the unity created by the new government itself:

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize.

By establishing a singular national identity around a subset of those whom he believes have “built” the country, Vance makes differences into divisions and fosters an environment where others are marginalized and excluded, undermining the very unity that is essential for our nation's stability and prosperity.

The unity by which our government “constitutes” us is precisely and necessarily a unity of deeply conflicting interests. Madison said it perfectly in Federalist No. 10:

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

Many of us warned against those conflicting interests becoming factions. As I put it in my Farewell Address:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.

Homogeneous national identity marginalizes those who do not conform. In a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, I emphasized inclusivity:

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

As the nation’s first President I have been too busy to read Hillbilly Elegy, but I caught the movie, and am now struck by the irony of Vance, who was so “othered” by the white shoe law firm with the silverware protecting the elite from him now decreeing that we must only welcome newcomers "on our terms" to preserve, as he says, continuity. Just as I have been trying hard to convince Joe Biden to return to private life like me, I urge Vance to find again the humility of which his book says he is capable about “our terms.” Dr. Franklin said it well in Poor Richard’s Almanack:

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.