31 Jan Thomas Woodrow Wilson

“Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.”

Theodore Roosevelt: “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.”

Identity politics in America has created a Tower of Babel as different identity groups don’t understand each other’s thinking and values. Trust between groups has declined which has led to hostilities. Lacking integrity, the Tower will collapse.

In broad terms, there are “progressives” who wish to destroy the historical American identity of capitalism and personal freedoms of speech and choice at the local level and supplant them with central government controls, while “conservatives” wish to preserve this American identity.  Identity groups are represented by politicians whose operative word is “fight,”  declaring: “I will fight for you [your group] for….” Rarely today do people frame an issue in terms of what’s the right thing to do, what’s best for America. Ultimately, there are temporary winners and losers on various issues but the country as a whole is every time the loser on a path to its demise.