American national identity
Subject in History
American national identity has come up in 1 episode across 1 podcast in TMT, including Pod Save America. 2 people have made recorded remarks about it.
What people said
Ben RhodesFormer Obama speechwriter and deputy national security adviser, Crooked Media co-host and author of "All We Say"
Rhodes argued that advancing rights today requires embracing the whole American story, including its flawed founders, as Douglass and King did.
“if you want to persuade people and if you want to advance rights in this country, you actually have to embrace the whole story, like even the parts we don't like”
Pod Save America: What Does it Mean to Be an American? (May 31, 2026) · Listen from 42:15
Rhodes argued that one of two competing American stories is an inheritance-based nationalism he likens to originalism or blood-and-soil nationalism.
“there is one story that is a nationality of inheritance that you can call it originalism. You can call it blood and soil nationalism”
Pod Save America: What Does it Mean to Be an American? (May 31, 2026) · Listen from 9:53
Jon FavreauCo-host of Pod Save America and former speechwriter for President Barack Obama
Favreau argued that the Declaration of Independence has fallen out of favor with national conservatives because activists used it to demand equality.
“Which, by the way, is why it has fallen out of favor with J.D. Vance and some of the national conservatives today”
Pod Save America: What Does it Mean to Be an American? (May 31, 2026) · Listen from 41:52
Favreau argued that the ability of anyone to become American is the core of American exceptionalism.
“anyone can come to America and become American. And like that, that is a very that is a unique, exceptional quality of America”
Pod Save America: What Does it Mean to Be an American? (May 31, 2026) · Listen from 18:36
Podcasts
- Pod Save America · 1 episode
Episodes
What Does it Mean to Be an American?Pod Save America · May 31, 2026 · 1 h 20 min
Jon Favreau talks with Ben Rhodes about his book "All We Say," tracing the 250-year argument over American identity through fifteen consequential speeches.
Related topics
- All We Say (Ben Rhodes book)
- JD Vance Claremont Institute speech
- Benjamin Franklin's closing speech at the Constitutional Convention
- Cornerstone Speech
- Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address
- A More Perfect Union (speech)
- I Have a Dream
- Second inauguration of Donald Trump
- Immigration to the United States
- Frederick Douglass's Composite Nation speech