American Citizenship and Its Decline

Free government allows human beings to flourish by providing citizens with authority and responsibility to pursue the common good. This practice of citizenship is under attack today by a form of bureaucratic government in which experts dictate rules concerning every area of life.

Citizenship emerged more than 2,500 years ago in the ancient Greek city-state. Government by the consent of a free citizenry is rare in human history and on the decline today throughout the constitutional republics of the West. 

A large and self-sufficient middle class is essential to citizenship, as it prevents an unstable, binary society of rich and poor. The once thriving American middle class is now vanishing due to high debts, low wages, and government policies that trap citizens in a prolonged adolescence.

America’s founding principle of equality created an opportunity for people from all over the world—regardless of race or birth—to immigrate to the United States and become full citizens. This led to a system of immigration that proceeded according to established laws and required a willingness and ability to assimilate into American society. These criteria have been abandoned in favor of a system of widespread illegal immigration that erodes the rights of citizens.

Tribal politics is one of the most ancient and dangerous challenges to citizenship. The recent rise of identity politics in America breaks the bonds of common citizenship and divides Americans on the basis of superficial characteristics like race, gender, and sexual orientation.

The growth of an administrative deep state in America places massive government power outside the control of American citizens. These unaccountable agencies determine the rules that govern society, execute those rules, and settle disputes, and they wield these combined powers to undermine the constitutional operations of American government.

A common challenge to citizenship is the view that human nature changes and that fundamental laws need to be altered in favor of a modern understanding of progress and science. Today, the ruling class seeks to consolidate power and advance its progressive ends by making structural changes to the Constitution or circumventing it entirely.

There is a growing movement to surrender American sovereignty to international bodies. This effort—championed by a global elite—excludes the participation of the American people and threatens our national security.