Yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance shared a story about an encounter with a Ukrainian-American citizen during his days on the Senate campaign trail in 2022. The anecdotal account is simultaneously a testament to how important immigration is to America and also a damning warning about what immigration can devolve into if it becomes lawless and unchecked.
Like many stories from politicians, I have no way to verify the details of Vance's encounter. I imagine, like many stories of this sort, Vance probably embellished or at least polished up his words to his Ohio constituent. On the other hand, most of the stories Vance has told about his past, as evidenced by the tremendous success of his book Hillbilly Elegy, have been confirmed to be pretty accurate.
Regardless, the overall message of the story could not be more important at this moment in American history. Here it is:
Here is the rest of the lengthy but significant tweet:
'Sir,' I replied, 'your country is the United States of America, and so is mine.'
I always found it offensive that a new immigrant to our country would be willing to use the power and influence of their new nation to settle the ethnic rivalries of the old.
One of the most important parts of assimilation is seeing *your* country as the USA. It's part of the bargain: if you're welcomed into our national family, you ought to look out for the interests of the United States. I know many immigrants who have the right perspective, and I'm grateful to them. For example, I met many Ukrainian Americans during that campaign (and since) who agreed with my views, or at the very least, asked the right question: what is in the best interests of the United States?
'Your country is the United States of America, and so is mine.'
Please say it again, Mr. Vice President. Louder for the people in the back, particularly to United States 'representatives' like Ilhan Omar.
I don't want to debate the Russia-Ukraine war here or the approach that President Trump and his team are taking to end that war as quickly and permanently as possible. Twitchy has done plenty of that and will continue to do it for as long as it takes.
The more important point here, for me, is Vance's emphasis on what it means to be an American, whether you were born here or came here from another country. After all, ALL of our families came here from another country at some point.
For me, at least on one half of my family, it was my grandfather who came to America alone from Italy, as a teenager, because his family could only afford to send one of three brothers on a boat to the 'New World.' I have never shied away from my pride about my Italian heritage, the courage of my grandfather to make that trip, and all that he endured to establish a life for himself (and the family he would build) in America.
If you read my articles, I often make references to that Italian pride. After all, it's been a while since Italy ruled the world, but we still built the greatest civilization in history.
Or, I should say, the second greatest civilization.
From the moment my grandfather arrived at Ellis Island, he considered himself an American above all. Why else would he have wanted to come here?
Vance notes that in his tweet. 'One of the most important parts of assimilation is seeing *your* country as the USA.'
As he also noted, there are plenty of legal immigrants who still feel this way. Some of them chimed in after he posted his tweet.
I was born in Israel but I am a US citizen only.
— Michael J. Morrison (@OfficeOfMike) February 25, 2025
John A. Konrad I was born in Germany. The day Germany declared war, no John Konrad ever spoke German again.
— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) February 25, 2025
A year later, John A. Konrad III bombed the Fatherland.
This isn’t complicated. Pick. A. Side. https://t.co/4b9ZwBCBuP
When my French-born mom gets asked where she is from, she replies proudly in her French accent, “I am from Tex-AS”! https://t.co/VHOTlF7dfY
— Victoria Barton (@victoriafromDTX) February 26, 2025
This is the way.
Sadly, however, there are far too many who consider the United States a country they can exploit while they serve the interests of the places they fled.
Representative Omar is just one of the most egregious examples. She has openly stated, more than once, that she considers her role as promoting the interests of Somalia first, and never the interests of the United States.
Funny how she doesn't want to live there, though. The United States LITERALLY saved her life, and she uses every opportunity to badmouth and undermine the country.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but she is a disgrace.
Recently, we have also seen protests (usually well-funded protests) regarding Trump's mass deportation program. Do those protesters ever wave the American flag and shout, 'Please let me stay. I love this country.'?
Of course not. They wave Mexican or other foreign flags and angrily screech, 'You can't make us leave,' often in languages other than English.
And they wonder why Americans cheer when they get put on planes.
Many on the left denounced Vance's tweet. I won't repeat their comments here, but they angrily claimed -- i.e., 'lied' -- that he was saying that immigrants to America have to immediately drop all ties to their heritage.
Garbage. Pure nonsense. That is not what he is saying at all.
As I said, I am proud that half of my family came from Italy. I will never NOT be proud of that. I love Italian culture, Italian cooking, Italian history, and the Italian language, among many other aspects of my heritage.
I also ... ahem ... may or may not have a little crush on Giorgia Meloni.
But no matter how much I love those things (and might get jealous if Elon Musk and Meloni are seen flirting), I am always an American first and foremost. I learned that from my grandfather. And my father after him.
That is my primary identity and always will be.
We can talk about policy issues like deportations, birthright citizenship, or other government measures. I encourage and support all that the law will allow. But politics always exists downstream of culture.
Vance correctly identifies in his tweet that the true problem with the unchecked immigration we have lived with for far too long is fundamentally a cultural one.
We can only fix that problem if, with apologies to Lee Greenwood, we support only the people who are 'proud to be an American.'
I know it will not be easy, nor will it be quick, but we can get that culture back in America. It was true of most Americans for the majority of this nation's history. It has only been recently that we have allowed America haters to assume a prominent place in our culture. And even more recently that we opened the border to all of them.
Vance and the Trump administration are putting an end to the second half of that. But changing the culture is on all of us, not the government.
Immigrants who are coming to America -- legally, of course -- because they want to be Americans should be welcomed with open arms.
But anyone coming here (and even many natural-born citizens) who wants to hate America and put the interests of other countries before this one, sorry, but you need to leave. And if you are here illegally, we are going to MAKE you leave, and we are not going to shed a single tear about it.
As a culture, Americans need to reject them until they are shown the door. And we cannot care if the left and the dead media call us 'mean' or 'bigots' because of that. They're going to call us that anyway. Too bad. The survival of the United States is far more important to most of us than their manufactured outrage.
'America First' is not just a campaign slogan or simply a government policy.
We need to make it our culture again.
