American Lies
Part one billion: The Melting Pot
I was a French major in college, and color me shocked when we had to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s On Democracy in the original French. Two volumes, published in 1835 and 1840, and he nailed down the issue we’re dealing with today.
“Each person, withdrawn into himself, behaves as though he is a stranger to the destiny of all the others. His children and his good friends constitute for him the whole of the human species. As for his transactions with his fellow citizens, he may mix among them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone.”
An outsider, in the United States, talking about our democracy. Finding the perfect words to prescribe the issue plaguing the United States in 2026.
But how did we get here? That’s what we’re talking about today, on American Lies. Welcome back friends. We’re discussing the Melting Pot: where the name came from, why it led us to loneliness epidemics, and how a savior was found for white America in the form of Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.
Tocqueville wrote about the early identity crisis he saw in the United States, which was branded as individualism. He wrote about it over 60 years before the Melting Pot play arrived on the scene, entering that phrase into the lexicon and eventually history books.
The idealized version of The Melting Pot is something every American knows today - this idea that ANYONE can come to the United States, the land of milk and honey, to chase their American Dream. They come with seven dollars in their pocket (it’s always seven isn’t), and they make something of themselves. They become American and chase the American Dream.
In my opinion, after relearning US History for a while, is that the Melting Pot theory is a farce. For one thing, it wasn’t afforded to everyone. And Tocqueville saw that right now.
It’s a cutesy way to say, “Assimilate or Die.” European immigrants were asked one thing when they came to the United States, blend in. Become American.
And do that merely by:
Changing your name
Changing the way you dress
Changing your language
Changing your traditions (out least outwardly)
And of course, be prepared to do it on your own
European immigrants adhered to this as much as possible. Often changing their name before leacing Ellis Island. Every history teacher I’ve ever had said it was to make their names easier to pronounce. I don’t know, it feels like a safety thing. While Black Americans make up the largest numbers of peoples lynched, Sicilian Americans were also lynched, German immigrants, Jewish immigrants, and more.
When you look at the data on the history of lynching, and you pay attention to who we would call “white” today, it’s people with ethnic names, with connections to the homeland, people who didn’t do the simple ask of assimilating. Reader, this is sarcasm. Remember the task is not simple.
Others took a different approach. If they couldn’t prove their whiteness via all the above changes, they joined in to do a violence against non-white Americans. Namely Black and Indigenous Americans. A few times throughout history, free Black Americans and white European immigrants teamed up to expel Indigenous people (I am thinking about Bacon’s Rebellion here specifically, but there are others).
So what happens when you demand that millions of immigrants forego their entire identity to fit into a social hierarchy that’s made up? They desperately crave connection, understanding, even identity.
And when a man who is way too tan shows up on the scene saying, I can give you identity, culture, community, and even a purpose with Make America Great Again – many folks are ready to accept that.
Tocqueville mentions this. Predicts it even. He calls it soft despotism. A gradual takeover of the government. Allowing the citizenry small wins, so they believe they’re free.
That lack of identity is something I see capitalized on in every instance fascism creeps in. Hannah Arendt writes about it, pointing out that fascists don’t go after the poor, but rather the disaffected. Those who feel like they deserve more, but belong nowhere. And somehow Tocqueville knew. A hundred years before Arendt was born. 150 years before Umberto Eco writes Eternal Fascism.
I see this disaffected class in MAGA, and don’t mistake my writing for too much sympathy for them. Please. I beg you. Because I know their belief systems gave them the go ahead to join forces with Donald Trump, a known racist, rapist, and all around bad person. And I know they want someone to hate, and when Trump says brown and Black Americans, they say bet.
But to get out of where we are today, we have to understand how we got here. And the disaffection of a large group of people combined with our country failing forced the already open door to facism wide open.
About 30% of this country wanted this, every time Donald Trump ran, somewhere around 30% of the adults in the room wanted exactly this. Maybe they didn’t “want” the racism, the families being ripped apart, whatever, but they excused it because of what MAGA gave them – so what do we do to get out of it, we rally the 70% of the adults in the room. We fight like hell to bring back community, to help each other get through this, and we hold these motherfuckers accountable.
This isn’t as thought out as I’d like it to be, but I’ll revisit it. I am having a very hard time financially, so if you’re up to support me, subscribe here on Substack for five dollars a month, or shoot me a venmo, or follow my podcast, or head over to Youtube. I’d love you forever (I already do).