[DiogenesKynikos]

Alexander Hamilton was a monarchist. He's hardly the single authority on what American values are.

If we're playing the "what did the founders think?" game, then I'll see your Hamilton and raise you a Washington [0]:

> The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent & respectable Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights & previleges, if by decency & propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.

And then I'll double down with a Jefferson [1]:

> and shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress, that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? the constitution indeed has wisely provided that, for admission to certain offices of important trust, a residence shall be required, sufficient to develope character and design. but might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bonâ fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us?

And of course, the most famous statement of the American attitude towards immigration:

> Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

> With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

> Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

> A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

> Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

> Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

> Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

> The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

> “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

> With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

> Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

> The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

> Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

> I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

0. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-...

1. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0...

2. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossu...

[rayiner]

> I'll see your Hamilton and raise you a Washington [0]

If America can be defined in terms of a "creedo"--which is your position, not mine--then surely that creedo can't include things that architects of the country like Hamilton and Jefferson disagreed on? The creedo must be the things they had in common, like federalism, republicanism, and property rights?

> And of course, the most famous statement of the American attitude towards immigration:

The American creedo cannot logically be defined by some poem some activist wrote a century after the founding.

[DiogenesKynikos]

Jefferson is much closer to the American credo than Hamilton was, though the United States did not remain stuck in the 1770s-1790s, so it's just a fallacy to treat the founders as the sole source of American identity.

But if you do want to play the founders game, Jefferson had a much larger impact on American self-identity than Hamilton. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, created the Democratic Party, which is the only party that has survived throughout all of American history, and championed the idea of democracy, which Hamilton was highly skeptical of. Hamilton was a monarchist, as I mentioned before. He had a major impact on the American financial system, but was much less successful as a political figure in his own right and did not shape American cultural and political identity in the way Jefferson did. His political party collapsed within 20 years, and his conceptions of an elite politics were overtaken by the rapid democratization of the US.

There have always been minority streams in American politics that have been xenophobic and have opposed immigration - you just happen to belong to the latest one. But these movements have consistently lost out over the course of American history. Successive waves of immigration have brought new groups to the United States. Xenophobes like yourself have constantly said that every new group would ruin America. The Irish didn't ruin America. Neither did the Germans. Neither did the Italians. Giving African Americans civil rights didn't ruin America. Chinese and Indian people haven't ruined America. Haitians aren't ruining America.

You seem to have some sort of obsession with Mamdani, which is weird, since he's as American as Apple Pie. It's actually difficult to think of anything about Mamdani that comes across as particularly foreign. He speaks perfect American English. He acts just like any other progressive New Yorker. He's extremely hooked into American culture. What, exactly, is it about Mamdani that's foreign or dangerous to America?

When you ask what makes immigration part of the American credo, this is what does that: the US is not a country founded on any ethnic identity. It's a country founded and peopled by immigrants, whose only common identity is belief in the American project, which is defined in purely secular and civic terms. Throughout its history, immigrants from all over the world have embraced that identity and have been rapidly incorporated into the society of the country. You don't like that, and want to undo it. Too bad.