Gomez’s Breakdown Exposes Corrosion Of American Identity

Seemingly sitting comfortably in her mega-mansion — big enough to house a dozen illegal immigrants — Selena Gomez broke down in tears on Monday over mass deportations. Through her garbled speech, she claimed “all my people are getting attacked.” But her comments expose an uncomfortable — and dangerous — truth: After decades of mass legal immigration, America finds herself a nation in name only, a conglomeration of various ethnic groups who don’t have allegiance to our country, but rather to their ethnicities.

Gomez was born in Texas. Her mother was born in Texas. Her father was born in Texas. And yet, in a video that she posted (and shortly after deleted) on Monday, Gomez said: “All my people are getting attacked. The children. I don’t understand. I’m so sorry.”

But Gomez doesn’t “understand” because, in her eyes, she’s “American-Mexican” — not “American.” She views herself as an iteration of “American,” someone with dual allegiance and affinity to an ethnic group.

An “American,” however, understands that America is not a dumping ground nor an economic opportunity zone and that no one has a “right” to come here. But alas, Gomez’s comments epitomize the problem of a country that increasingly lacks a national identity because of mass immigration without any requirements for assimilation.

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You see, Gomez’s people should, by all accounts, be the American people (you know, the ones she grew up with and the ones her parents grew up with in the country they were born in). Instead, her allegiance is based on her ethnic background.

But such a way of thinking is dangerous to the future of our Republic.

America’s founders understood that a nation is a sacred place bound together by commonality, a shared language, and culture. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1802, “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”

But our Republic is no longer safe. Porous borders perpetuated by rampant globalist ideologies have allowed murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and cartel members to enter this country and wreak havoc. That threat is only exasperated when people like Gomez, with “foreign bias,” do not possess a “love of country” for where they live, but rather a love of ethnic roots.

After the Second World War, liberal “intellectuals” and globalists abandoned the idea of a nation united by shared values and virtues. As noted on X by Adam Johnston, who has written in these pages, “liberal intellectuals like Karl Popper” argued that such “strong beliefs” led to nationalism, which led to both world wars.

But the “twin pillars of the postwar liberal order, free trade and open borders, are the logical policy endpoints of [this] globalist ideology,” as The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson noted earlier this month. And as America opened its doors wider, it did so without an expectation that newcomers would be required to assimilate. The result? A fractured nation with divided loyalties.

Theodore Roosevelt warned in 1907 that immigrants should be treated equally and welcomed so long as they assimilate and become “nothing but an American.”

“There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also” — (looking at you, “American-Mexican” Gomez) — “isn’t an American at all.”

“[W]e have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people,” Roosevelt continued.

But Roosevelt’s warnings were not heeded. Instead, “diversity” suddenly became our “strength,” and globalism was increasingly viewed favorably. No longer is America a place of common people in pursuit of our founding ideals. No, instead we are reduced to being a financial hub, treated as nothing more than an economic opportunity zone where anyone who wants to enter can, even at the expense of our national unity based on a shared culture — and to the detriment of our very sovereignty and safety.

Gomez doesn’t care that radical open border policies have put Americans in direct line of danger, because she doesn’t care about preserving American sovereignty or protecting the American people. She, like so many on the left, simply care about defending their self-identified ethnic group. Such a belief is a recipe for disaster and a guaranteed way to dismantle an entire country.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2