[pavlov]

Coming from North Europe, I always felt America’s loose definition of identity was its core strength.

No national religion. No national language. No centralized identity registry. Social security numbers that are more like timid suggestions than actual identifiers. Opening a bank account with just two pieces of foreign identity. Enrolling your kids in school by simply showing up and filling some forms.

I grew up in a country where I was assigned at birth with one state religion (out of two), a national language (out of three), and an ironclad digital identity number.

The American approach felt like a breath of fresh air. I — and millions of others — could choose to be someone else than what the computer says.

But the rise of Trumpism disillusioned me. Now I’m back in my home country and happily paying taxes to the state church while my children enjoy free education in four languages. What seemed like an identity straitjacket when I was younger now appears more like a spectrum of cozy options that I know how to navigate. Meanwhile America looks hell-bent on acquiring the straitjacket.

[ljsprague]

I'm confused. Is the "straitjacket" supposed to be good or bad? You seem to have ultimately happy to have chosen it for yourself but Americans choosing the same somehow disillusioned you?

[AlecSchueler]

It "seemed like" a straitjacket when they were younger but now that they recognise the plurality that actually exists around them it no longer seems like one.

[bigstrat2003]

I personally believe that the last few decades have shown us that a lack of unifying identity in America is a weakness, not a strength. We no longer have shared values, shared religious beliefs, shared customs, or really shared much of anything any more. And as a result, half the country viscerally hates the other half of the country. People living in cities disdainfully speak about "fly-over country" and how backwards and ignorant people are there. People living in rural areas complain about "big city liberals", and how they think they know everything but have no actual practical knowledge of anything. Both groups try to jerk the steering wheel of government back and forth with every election, and try to give even more power to the federal government so that they can use it to stop the other group from doing things they disapprove of.

In my opinion, this sort of thing greatly weakens us as a nation and will eventually destroy us if we can't figure out how to find common ground again. It should be possible - we've come back from worse (say what you will about modern day US politics, it hasn't come to civil war yet like it did in the past). But I think if we're going to find common ground, part of it will have to involve cultivating a shared national identity like we used to have.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> We no longer have shared values, shared religious beliefs, shared customs, or really shared much of anything any more.

We never had any of these, except for, possibly, just one shared belief: the idea that a constitutional democracy was the best sort of government to live under.

What we did have was a media/cultural environment that glossed over the differences between people, minimized various minority demographics, and worked hard to convince everyone that "we're all Americans and we all believe, do and want the same things". But that wasn't true then, any more than it is true today.

I want our shared national identity to be limited to our belief in our form of government. I don't want to have to know the same songs, go to the same church, drive the same car, watch the same shows as everyone else, and I don't think they should have to do that w.r.t my choices (nor are they likely to want to).

That was the beauty of "American identity", but even the belief in our form of government has been severely eroded. By whom or why ... I'll leave unremarked upon here.

[bobthepanda]

shared religious beliefs, is possibly the biggest lie. As recently as the '60s there were questions about whether people would accept a "papist" president in the form of JFK. at least part of the reason why the separation of church and state existed was because otherwise it would've meant picking one of the many versions of Christianity or otherwise that had sought refuge in the US, which would mean excluding the others. The Quakers, the Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Catholics, the Anglicans, etc. were all very different and had very different opinions of each other.

[ljsprague]

Yes because America was formerly a Protestant country.

[bobthepanda]

This isn’t even strictly true; Maryland, one of the original colonies, was founded as a haven for Catholics and named after a Catholic queen.

[ljsprague]

When was our first Catholic president?

[Barrin92]

>that a lack of unifying identity in America is a weakness, not a strength

America's proper and authentic identity always is its pluralism, entailing all the conflict that brings. If America made one unique contribution to the world its that it has shown how identities, plural, can be built from the bottom up and are in constant tension with each other, and that this is a feature, not a bug.

An American government trying to impose identity, by renaming lakes and mountains, mandating language(s) or what have you is so performative it looks more like North Korean state television than culture, it's utterly foreign to Americans and going to fail for that reason. Americans are instinctively allergic to having culture, regardless from what direction, declared on them by fiat.

[userbinator]

No national religion. No national language.

US currency says "in God we trust". The government's official communications are in English.

[jrmg]

US currency says "in God we trust" …since the 1950s.

For a lot longer, it’s said “E Pluribus Unum” (“From Many, One”). The phrase has been associated with the USA since its inception. Diversity is a traditional American value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum