The Shining City on the Hill

July 4, 2025

Doug Leyendecker

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

America is a tune. It must be sung together.
– Gerald Stanley Lee

FAVORITE WATCH OF THE WEEK

What Makes America Exceptional
Bari Weiss and Akhil Amar count the ways.

THINKING OUT LOUD

The Shining City on the Hill
It shines on only if we protect it

Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.
– Coretta Scott King

The Fourth of July is not just a celebration of our declaration of independence. It’s also a commemoration of this nation immigrants created—not because we were a common people but because we held a common idea.

Immigration isn’t just as American as apple pie. It’s a global phenomenon. Over the course of human history, people from all over the world have sought opportunity elsewhere. Or those from oppressive, tyrannical or war-torn nations have sought peace and freedom. And sometimes people must flee as refugees just to try to survive.

Whatever the cause, the modern global record on immigration is mixed.

Europe is experiencing an immigration backlash after opening the floodgates to millions of immigrants from the Middle East. European cultures are so deep rooted that immigrants don’t assimilate easily. In Asia, countries with even deeper-rooted histories like China, Japan and South Korea bring immigrants in for work; but, like Europe, there’s no expectation that immigrants will assimilate. No one really wants to immigrate to the Middle East or Africa. These are very harsh environments for immigrants.

And then there’s the United States.

From day one, the United States has been a nation of immigrants. From the start, it was built on the idea that people from different backgrounds could come together to create something new. Unlike older nations rooted in shared ancestry, America was founded on shared ideals.

America’s pull has always been about freedom, rights and the chance to build something for yourself. People fleeing poverty or oppression come here because they believe in what the country stands for. And many don’t just hope to fit in—they want to fit in. Becoming American means more than getting papers. It’s about buying into a promise of opportunity and belonging.

So strong is the lure of this promise that people will risk life and limb to cross our borders. They will leave families behind, work tirelessly to earn more than they could at home and send money back to their families so they may benefit from even a slice of the American Dream from afar.

Why does this successful story of immigration only belong to the United States? Why have we been so open to immigrants, and why have they been so open to us? What’s our secret sauce, the sauce that no other nation has been able, or willing, to replicate?

Ours is a culture of assimilation. Unlike our neighbors across both oceans, which are built on thousands of years of expanding and contracting empires, deep and proud cultural histories and traditions, and wars fought to spread and preserve those cultures, our culture is an idea—and one that was entirely novel to the world when it was introduced: That anyone can come from anywhere and buy into our culture of freedom and opportunity. The requirement is not that you give up who you are but that you agree to believe in the American idea and then pursue your dream.

In recent decades, there’s been a war on American culture. It began in the ivory tower, with roots that trace back to Marxist and postmodern ideas, aimed at dismantling societies in pursuit of utopias that never come. Using levers like multiculturalism and identity politics, these ideas spilled out of classrooms and into corporations, government, institutions and most every facet of public life. Along the way, and by design, these ideas have sown division and weakened our sense of national unity.

Of the many American ideas in this war’s cross hairs, assimilation has been a prime target. Once seen as a cornerstone of American success, assimilation has been labeled oppressive and racist, yet one more extension of white supremacy. There’s been a movement to end assimilation at the same time that our borders were thrown open and millions of immigrants flooded in. These clashing tensions are fracturing not just our country but also the fragile yet vital ideals that unite us and make our country work.

This isn’t the first time America has faced deep tension over immigration. And if history is any guide, it won’t be the last. But if we want to survive this stretch, we need to return to one of our founding ideals. The melting pot, once central to our shared identity, must be restored to its rightful place.

This Fourth of July, let’s celebrate who we are—a nation of immigrants whose strength lies not in our differences but in the values we share. Let’s remember the American dream that has brought so many to this country. Let’s value the one constantly changing culture over the victim culture. This is the secret sauce that has made this country great. Let’s not give it up.

Ray Chalres sings
“America the Beautiful”

GREAT 4TH OF JULY QUOTES

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry, and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy people.
– George Washington

Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
– John F. Kennedy

The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, and quality and of peaceful liberty.
– Marquis de Lafayette

The essence of America, that which really unites us, is not ethnicity or nationality or religion. It is an idea, and what an idea it is — that you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.
– Condoleezza Rice

It’s important to remember that the United States is a nation of nations. We are not defined by bloodlines, but by a shared belief in liberty and justice.
– Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior and member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
– George Orwell

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
– Nathan Hale

In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
– From Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club

In a world of change, America stands as a beacon of hope, where the heart can still dare to dream.
– Maya Angelou

GREAT 4TH OF JULY SPEECHES

Give me liberty or give me death
– Patrick Henry, 1775

On American Independence
– Samuel Adams, 1776

Electric Cord Speech
– Abraham Lincoln, 1858

Some Elements of American Character
– John F. Kennedy, 1946

The American Dream
– Martin Luther King, 1965

PATRIOTS & POPCORN

Looking for something to watch this 4th of July weekend?