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You are reducing American Citizenship down to the equivalent of a Costco membership.
If America isn’t a people by race then we must be a people by creed. An idea. But BB rejected all that.
What’s left is just like a membership card to Costco.
I do agree we have at a minimum a few million people today where America is neither blood nor creed. I have friends in this bucket.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t think thru the argument before going legalistic. A legal argument of being American reduces American to a Costco Membership.
No, I'm reducing American citizenship to the terms outlined in the Constitution and US law, which is the only definition that matters. What you're trying to do is introduce additional criteria that doesn't come from anywhere accept your own imagination to define American as that which conforms to your own biases of what Americans are supposed to be. Well, two can play at that game; for that matter, 200 million can play at that game, and you don't have any authority to make that determination over them. The only authority that matters in this case is that of the US government, and that is who I'll defer to on definitions of who counts as an American. You can't just invent your own definitions for things that are already well-defined because the implications make you uncomfortable.
Fair, and at risk of saying not much, I'd say that it's, uh, complicated. For example, I have good friends who were born and raised Canadian citizens and who later acquired US citizenship, too.1 For several of them, (not brushing with any broader of a brush), they're basically understood to be (and would describe themselves as) "Canadian, but also with US citizenship". Are they "American"? Uh... kinda yeah? Also maybe kinda no? If you just asked them if they were "American", I think they'd say, "I'm Canadian, but I have US citizenship." Does that matter? I don't particularly take a position either way.
Different individuals among them may have different senses of it, too. Some, for example, really are effectively Canadian at heart. One guy I know discovered that one of his ancestors also had US citizenship, and found that the paperwork to go the route of attaining citizenship that way was easier for him than going through spousal immigration in order to move here with his wife.2 If it had been just as easy to do it the other way, would he have bothered? I don't know; it's a counterfactual, and lots of things can come into play over time. But he might have been perfectly happy being "Canadian citizen and US Permanent Resident" indefinitely. Does this matter? I don't know. I can vaguely see both sides.
For what it's worth, my best Puerto Rican friend would say, "I'm Puerto Rican, and oh by the way, we have American citizenship." Does that matter? Hell, I don't know.
You're obviously right that the only non-squishy way to draw lines is via citizenship, but my observation is that a lot of folks view the real world as inherently squishy.
1 - I also know at least one guy born/raised in the US. He and his wife moved to Canada for work for several years. He got Canadian citizenship, she didn't. They would explicitly say that the reason he got Canadian citizenship was just because it made dealing with a certain Canadian law regarding his line of work easier. They've lived back in the US for quite a few years now. I don't think either of them would say they're "Canadian". If you just asked them, they'd probably say that he was "American", full stop. If you went on to ask him about his time in Canada, he'd add, "...and yeah, I did get Canadian citizenship."
2 - For this particular couple, they actually moved to Canada first when they got married; she went through whatever process to be able to move up there and be married to him. I don't know if she acquired Canadian citizenship at any point. Later, when they decided they wanted to live in the US (for a particular work reason), they discovered this business about his ancestor. Where they're living and what citizenship he has is just sort of an incidental and paperwork thing to them.
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A country isn’t words on paper. If they were then many countries would be America.
We can debate whether America can reject someone who wants to be America. But I think a bare minimum for considering yourself an American is whether to the best of your ability and knowledge work to improve and protect America.
For someone like Trump we may debate whether his view of America is correct. But he did bleed for America. He did risks spending the rest of his life in jail for America. He’s clearly a patriot though we can disagree on whether he methods are wrong. Do I think BB would do that for America - no.
You have aptly described the definition of legal citizenship. I am not using American as “legal citizen”. I don’t believe bad bunny even describes himself as an American.
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You're the one who brought up citizenship, which is irrelevant. OP was not talking about citizenship but affinity.
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