Charles C.W. Cooke Wastes 4,000 Words to Argue That Being American Means Agreeing With Him

National Review Seethes With Quiet Rage as The Hill Gets 10x the Traffic By Just Reporting What Happened

Charles C. W. Cooke’s National Review essay, “To Be, and to Become, an American,” presents an argument that sounds principled on the surface but collapses under logical scrutiny. Cooke attempts to distinguish between merely being American and being a “good” American, suggesting that the latter requires subscribing to a specific political creed. This distinction is not merely pedantic, as Cooke claims it is, but genuinely dangerous. It provides intellectual cover for the kind of political gatekeeping that has historically been used to marginalize legitimate voices and silence dissent.

The fundamental problem with Cooke’s framework is what philosophers call an infinite regress problem. If we must judge immigrants based on their commitment to American ideals, then who gets to define those ideals? The current establishment? What happens when the establishment defines “good American” as someone who supports a particular policy agenda? This is not a hypothetical concern. It is precisely the logic that fueled McCarthyism, the Palmer Raids, and countless other episodes where Americans were labeled as “bad” or “un-American” for holding views that later became mainstream. The arrogance of assuming that any current group has perfected the interpretation of American ideals deserves the skepticism it receives.

The Pretense of a Singular Creed

Cooke asserts that America is a “creedal nation” with an “identifiable and particular” creed, but this claim does not withstand examination. The United States has always contained multitudes of competing interpretations of its founding principles. The original Constitution endorsed slavery while proclaiming that all men are created equal. The First Amendment was interpreted for decades to apply only to the federal government, not to states. The meaning of “the American dream” has shifted dramatically across generations, from homeownership to social mobility to something more abstract. To pretend that there is a fixed creed to which immigrants must assimilate is to pretend that American history is something other than a continuous argument about what America should be.

Consider the examples Cooke himself uses. He contrasts Ilhan Omar, whom he deems a “bad American,” with Craig Ferguson, whom he deems a “good American.” Leaving aside the ad hominem nature of this comparison, what exactly makes Omar bad and Ferguson good? If it is Omar’s criticism of Israeli policy and her progressive politics, then Cooke is essentially arguing that “good American” means “agrees with Charles C. W. Cooke’s political views.” This is not a creed. It is partisanship dressed up in constitutional language.

The Arrogance of the Gatekeepers

Cooke’s attitude toward immigrants reveals a troubling paternalism that treats them as projects to be molded rather than individuals to be welcomed. He writes that refugees who have been admitted to the United States “have no excuse for being anything other than ecstatically grateful every single day of their lives.” This is not a serious position. Human beings are complex. Refugees, like all people, retain the capacity for critical thought. The notion that someone whose life was saved by admission to America must now suppress any political views that might displease their benefactors is closer to the logic of an indentured servitude than it is to the logic of a free society.

The underlying assumption throughout Cooke’s essay is that existing Americans have somehow achieved a state of ideological perfection that newcomers must match. This is empirically absurd. Native-born Americans hold a wide range of political views, many of which contradict Cooke’s preferred creed. Are they all “good Americans” by his standards? Of course not. The suggestion that we should prefer immigrants who hold certain views over others implies that native-born Americans who hold different views are somehow less American, which Cooke supposedly rejects. The inconsistency is obvious.

History’s Verdict on the Gatekeepers

Every generation of American critics has believed that they knew what “real” Americans should believe. In the nineteenth century, the Know-Nothing Party railed against Irish Catholic immigrants, whom they characterized as “un-American” and unfit for citizenship (Wikipedia, 2026). These nativists controlled numerous state governments in the 1850s on an anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant platform, and their legacy of political exclusion based on religious affiliation has been thoroughly discredited by history.

In the early twentieth century, restrictionists argued that Southern and Eastern Europeans were racially incapable of assimilating into American society. The Immigration Act of 1924 established quotas that explicitly favored Northern Europeans while severely limiting immigration from regions deemed less desirable (U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian). The congressional debates over this legislation were saturated with references to “the so-called Nordic race” and explicit distinctions between “old” and “new” immigrants from Europe (Congressional Record, 1924). These restrictions remained in place for four decades, and the families they affected have since become fully integrated into American society.

Opposition to Asian immigration and citizenship followed similar patterns. From 1882 onward, Asian exclusion legislation severely limited the number of Asian immigrants who could enter the United States (Pluralism Project, Harvard University). Japanese immigrants were denied the right to become naturalized citizens until 1952, despite having lived in America for generations (Gilder Lehrman Institute). Opponents of Japanese immigration argued that these newcomers could never truly become Americans, that their cultural practices were incompatible with American society, and that their presence threatened American institutions. Historians have documented how these arguments were deployed even as Japanese Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II (Asian Studies Association).

In every case, these gatekeepers were wrong. In every case, the immigrants they dismissed as incompatible became as American as anyone. The children and grandchildren of today’s immigrants will be as quintessentially American as anyone. They will hold political views that Cooke might find objectionable, and they will participate in a political process that will continue to argue about what America means.

The False Promise of Assimilation

Cooke writes that “it is neither diversity nor homogeneity that is our strength, but assimilation.” This framing presents a false choice. The United States has always been both diverse and unified, and the unity has never required the elimination of cultural particularity.

Italian American communities preserved their culinary traditions while becoming fully American. Italian food has influenced the way Americans eat and has been assimilated into America’s culture like no other food (Alifoods, 2016). Italian American culture developed a tradition of cooking together as a means of sharing their culture and maintaining identity while simultaneously participating fully in American civic life (NU Italian, 2023). The bond between Italian Americans and their food serves as a powerful cultural marker that reflects the history, values, and identity of the community while simultaneously enriching American culture.

Jewish American communities maintained religious practices while serving in every sector of American life. Yiddish became a major language of Jewish newspapers, theater, and culture, while public schools served as the vehicle for acculturation into American life (Jewish Community Study). Despite centuries of exile, oppression, and genocide, Jews have fought to preserve their cultural and religious traditions while simultaneously shaping every aspect of American society (Jewish News Service, 2023). Jewish American identity represents a blending of heritage and American citizenship that contradicts any notion of forced assimilation.

Asian American communities have contributed distinct cultural elements while identifying as American. Chinese food was the first Asian cuisine to arrive in the United States during the Gold Rush, and Asian American cuisine has since emerged as a vibrant and influential force in shaping American food culture (Smithsonian Institution; History Channel). Asian American farmers have a rich history of contribution to the U.S. food economy that dates back to the late 1800s (Earthjustice, 2021). These contributions came despite legal discrimination that denied Asian immigrants the right to own property, marry, or become citizens for extended periods of American history.

The very language of “assimilation” implies a one-way process in which newcomers shed their previous identities and become identical to existing Americans. But American culture has always been a fusion. Italian Americans did not abandon their food traditions; they shared them, and America became richer for it. Jewish Americans did not abandon their religious and cultural practices; they integrated them into American religious pluralism. Asian Americans did not abandon their culinary traditions; they transformed American eating habits forever.

More fundamentally, Cooke ignores the mutuality of cultural exchange. Who among us does not use Yiddish words? The English language contains hundreds of words borrowed from Yiddish, including “bagel,” “glitch,” “nosh,” “klutz,” “schmooze,” “chutzpah,” “kvetch,” and “nudge” (Merriam-Webster, 2025; Wikipedia). These words are so embedded in American English that most speakers do not even recognize them as borrowed from another language.

Who does not celebrate holidays with roots in immigrant traditions? The Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, has taken root in the United States as a spiritual, cultural, and commercial celebration that honors the dead while simultaneously becoming part of the American holiday landscape (Rutgers University, 2025; National Geographic, 2018). The holiday represents a mixture of indigenous Aztec rituals influenced by Catholicism, and it has crossed borders to become a celebratory holiday in the U.S. (Daily Free Press, 2021). At the same time, Halloween has grown in popularity in Mexico as Dia de los Muertos has grown in the United States, demonstrating that cultural exchange flows in both directions (New Mexico Humanities Council, 2021).

Who does not eat food that came from elsewhere? Italian restaurants have done more than feed generations of Americans; they have shaped cultural perceptions of family, community, and celebration (Rosolini USA, 2025). Chinese restaurants have been a fixture of American life since the Gold Rush. Sushi, pho, pad Thai, and countless other foods from around the world have become American foods.

American culture is not a fixed essence that immigrants must accept. It is an ongoing creation in which everyone participates, including newcomers. The teenager who celebrates Dia de los Muertos is participating in American culture as surely as the teenager who celebrates Halloween. Both are American. Both are becoming something new.

Constitutional Fidelity and Democratic Dissent

Cooke suggests that immigrants who do not favor the Constitution “should not be accorded a vote within its protections.” This is a radical proposal that would fundamentally alter the meaning of American citizenship. The American system has always permitted citizens to criticize the Constitution, to advocate for its amendment, and to work for its fundamental transformation. This is not a bug. It is a feature. The Constitution itself contains provisions for its own amendment precisely because the founders understood that no document is perfect and that future generations might see things differently (National Archives).

The amendment process, outlined in Article V of the Constitution, has been used twenty-seven times since the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 (National Constitution Center). The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment established birthright citizenship and equal protection. The 15th Amendment prohibited racial discrimination in voting. The 19th Amendment established women’s suffrage. Each of these amendments represented a fundamental challenge to the original constitutional order, and each was achieved through democratic processes that Cooke seems inclined to foreclose.

If Cooke’s standard had been applied historically, many of the most revered Americans would have been excluded. The abolitionists who demanded an end to slavery were criticizing a Constitution that protected that institution. The suffragists who demanded the vote for women were criticizing a Constitution that excluded them. The civil rights activists who demanded equal treatment were criticizing a Constitution that sanctioned segregation. By Cooke’s logic, these troublemakers should have been rejected as “unwanted drags.” By any reasonable standard, they were fulfilling the highest American tradition of insisting that the nation live up to its ideals.

This is where Cooke’s argument becomes most troubling. He claims to believe in the rule of law and the Constitution, but he wants to exclude from political participation those who might change them. This is not fidelity to constitutional principles. It is entrenchment of current interpretations. The distinction matters because constitutional democracy requires the possibility of change. A system that freezes the status quo is not a constitutional democracy. It is something else.

The Jefferson Paradox

Cooke invokes Thomas Jefferson’s concerns about immigration from Notes on the State of Virginia, but this appeal cuts against Cooke’s case more than for it. Jefferson was writing in 1781 in a context where the United States was a small nation struggling to attract population. His concerns about “emigrants” bringing “the principles of the governments they leave” were speculative worries rather than empirical observations (Monticello).

Jefferson wrote that immigrants from absolute monarchies “will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty” (Monticello). But Jefferson also explicitly distinguished between discouraging immigration and admitting “useful artificers,” whom he urged his readers to “spare no expence in obtaining” (Monticello).

Jefferson himself welcomed French refugees from the Haitian Revolution. Between 1791 and 1810, more than 25,000 refugees arrived on American shores from Saint-Domingue, fleeing the violence that would eventually create the independent nation of Haiti (Smithsonian Magazine, 2016). Jefferson’s administration, despite the President’s personal fears about slave revolts, extended $726,000 and military support to the colony’s planters and eventually accepted the refugees as “victims of the horrors of war” (Smithsonian Magazine, 2016). More than 16,000 black refugees arrived, and despite fears that they might spread insurrectionist ideas, the transmission of violence that slaveholders feared never materialized (Smithsonian Magazine, 2016).

Jefferson was a perpetual tinkerer with American institutions who spent his life trying to reshape the country according to his vision. He purchased Louisiana in defiance of his strict constructionist principles when he saw an opportunity to advance American interests. He founded the University of Virginia as an alternative to what he saw as the insufficiently American institutions of his day. Jefferson did not believe that America was complete and that newcomers must simply accept it. He believed that America was a project to be continuously improved, and that immigrants might help.

Reagan’s Magical America

Cooke quotes Ronald Reagan’s famous line about becoming American: “You can go to live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American” (Reagan Foundation, 1988). This line, delivered at the groundbreaking for the Reagan Library in 1988, captures the aspirational vision that has drawn millions to America’s shores.

But Cooke misuses Reagan’s quotation. Reagan was making a point about the openness of American identity, not about the need to police its boundaries. His argument was that America is unique among nations in its ability to incorporate newcomers, not that newcomers must prove their worth before being accepted. The very word “become” in Reagan’s formulation suggests a process, not a test. It suggests that becoming American is something that happens through participation in American life, not something that requires ideological certification from gatekeepers.

Cooke claims that becoming American “for 250 years has implied something far more magical, more expansive, and more aspirational than exists anywhere else.” This is true, and the magic lies precisely in the openness and possibility that Reagan described. The moment we begin treating American identity as something that must be earned through correct beliefs, we lose what makes America distinctive among nations.

Conclusion: Against the Good American

The phrase “good American” is inherently problematic because it implies that some Americans are better than others based on their political views. This is antithetical to the principle of equality that Cooke professes to support. If all citizens have equal rights regardless of their views, then no citizen is a “bad American” in any meaningful sense. They might hold views that others find objectionable. They might advocate for policies that seem un-American to some. But that is what freedom is for. The purpose of political freedom is precisely to allow people to disagree without losing their status as full members of the polity.

Cooke claims that his framework is necessary for the survival of the American project. But the American project has always been defined by its openness to change, its hold of newcomers, and its tolerance for dissent. A nation that succeeds in excluding all those who might challenge its current consensus is not preserving the American project. It is ending it. The gates that Cooke wants to build would not keep out bad Americans. They would keep out the very energy that makes America worth preserving.

The remedy for bad ideas is good arguments, not immigration restrictions. The remedy for political views we dislike is persuasion, not exclusion. The American nation has survived 250 years of internal disagreement precisely because it has maintained a framework for living together despite our differences. Cooke’s framework would abandon that framework in favor of a permanent political test that would inevitably be administered by those with the power to define its terms. Those who value America should resist this temptation, however appealing it might seem.

I’m sorry about the length of this read, but the foolishness of the original essay drove me to it.

If thou dost hunger for turgid prose dressed in the robes of wisdom, then avail thyself of the original windbag's intellectual incontinence here: (PAYWALL WARNING)
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2026/03/to-be-and-to-become-an-american/

EDIT: Fixed a couple of typos

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