Patriotic assimilation is the cure for America’s identity crisis

Andrew Beck has articulated a thick version of the assimilation of immigrants (rightly so, in my view), which harks back to the spirit of Americanization prevalent from America’s founding to roughly the 1960s. Louis Brandeis, a liberal and political ally of the detestable Woodrow Wilson, expressed this common idea of assimilation in his July 5, 1915, “ Americanization Day Speech ”:

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners, and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech. But the adoption of our language, manners, and customs is only a small part of the process. To become