Increasingly, the question of what it actually means to be an American is breaking out into the public discourse.

Frankly, this trend is most obvious on social media, and those conversations are particularly prevalent on Twitter.

It’s one of those conversations that, if you’re someone of a certain age, seems like an irrelevant argument to be having in 2025.

And ordinarily you older cats would be right.

But I don’t have to tell anyone reading this column that the last decade and a half have been anything but normal here in America. One of the reasons that this topic has become all the rage is because of the way we talk about what it means to be citizens in the west. In the modern age, most westerners don’t really think of themselves as being a citizen of a particular nation but rather a “citizen of the world.”

It’s a cosmopolitan belief that is easy to fall into as a western person.

If you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world that modern folks don’t want to be thought of as being closed minded or xenophobic.

No, the view of an enlightened person is one that believes all cultures and societies are equivalent and that any cultural differences, even those that Westerners find abhorrent, are merely differences that are to be taken in stride.

And indeed, you can safety carry that enlightened view, so long as those cultural differences remain in a far off land, only to be seen on TV.

But when those differences create deep and unbridgeable social rifts in your backyard, even the most liberal minded among us might start to ask how our new neighbors can call themselves Americans without living up to the same western tolerance that allowed them to be our neighbors in the first place.

Despite what’s on the books, being an American means more than just having the good fortune to be born here or simply becoming naturalized by following the proper procedures.

Being an American is also a set of ideals and a shared series of beliefs about what it means to live in a civilized functioning society.

It means joining the social fabric of a nation that was built on the cruelties of the past but had the wherewithal to correct the failures endemic to human nature.

It means resisting the corrupting sway of historical grievances and the crippling self defeating beliefs about your limitations.

It means enjoying the liberty that being an American brings and coexisting with your neighbors without imposing your liberties on others.

It is the ongoing subversion of all of these things, but specifically the last one, that has led to these current arguments about what it means to be a good American citizen.

Because increasingly we are surrounded by neighbors, natural and foreign born alike, that gleefully violate the good citizen framework, seemingly without consequence.

Increasingly, the western world coddles and even rewards those that come into our nation seeking refuge, only to use their new station to trash to country and rally for anti-western causes.

This has been the most noticeable with the Somali population in Minnesota and the widespread fraud that is still being uncovered. Much of which has been aided by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, her family and associates.

But even that story comes at the tail end of decades of social divisions that have been purposely fostered by mostly, though not exclusively, leftists and the far right...