JD Vance, Unity Talk, and the Redefinition of Who America Is For

Speaking from the stage at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, JD Vance presented himself as a healer. He rejected what he called ideological “purity tests” and pledged solidarity with a broad, undefined “all of you” in defense of the nation. Together with Donald Trump, he insisted, the movement welcomes Americans of every race, income level, geography, temperament, and lifestyle.

What the speech conspicuously avoided was any mention of faith as part of this inclusive mosaic.

That omission mattered, because it allowed Vance to sidestep an internal crisis that has been tearing through the American right. In the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk, open conflict erupted within MAGA-aligned circles. Prominent conservatives such as Ben Shapiro called for figures like Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, and Tucker Carlson to be pushed out over their flirtation with antisemitic rhetoric. Vance offered no such reckoning. His message of unity functioned, in practice, as a refusal to draw lines.

A Movement at War With Itself

While Vance spoke of togetherness, dissent within conservative ranks has grown louder. Writing in The New York Times, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy warned about a rising strain of nationalism that defines “real” American identity through ancestry and bloodline. He described being flooded with racial slurs online and told to “go back to India,” despite having been born in the United States.

The unease extends beyond politicians. Conservative constitutional scholar Josh Blackman publicly stepped down from his role as a senior editor at the Heritage Foundation. In a letter addressed to its president, Kevin Rogers, Blackman condemned what he saw as the organization’s tolerance — even accommodation — of antisemitic voices following Carlson’s friendly interview with Fuentes. For Blackman, who is Jewish, the silence spoke louder than any apology.

Against this backdrop, Vance’s appeal to unity reads less like bridge-building and more like strategic ambiguity.

The Line That Changed the Room

The loudest applause of the evening came not from talk of inclusiveness, but from a declaration that cut in the opposite direction. Vance told the crowd that America’s enduring anchor is its Christian identity — that the United States has been, and by divine will always will be, a Christian nation.

He anticipated criticism and tried to soften the claim. One need not be Christian to hold citizenship, he said. Christianity, however, is supposedly the country’s defining creed.

That argument rests on a fragile foundation. America’s political history is not a chronicle of collective attempts to “please God,” but a series of disputes over power, rights, representation, and law. Religious belief has always been present, but it has never functioned as an official gatekeeper of belonging — at least not in principle.

What Vance offered was not historical clarification but reassurance. To a predominantly Christian audience, the message was clear: this country is fundamentally yours. Others may live here, worship here, and vote here, but they do so within a civilization defined by someone else’s faith.

A Reversal of an Older Promise

That vision stands in direct tension with the founding ideal articulated more than two centuries ago. In 1790, George Washington wrote to the Jewish congregation of Newport that religious freedom in the United States was not a matter of tolerance granted by a majority, but a natural right enjoyed equally by all.

Vance’s framing quietly inverts that promise. It suggests a hierarchy in which one religious tradition supplies the moral ownership of the nation, while others exist on borrowed ground.

Seen this way, the speech was not an attempt to calm internal divisions, but to redirect them. By elevating Christianity as the nation’s true core, Vance offered a unifying identity that bypasses race and class — yet still draws a boundary. Unity, yes, but on explicitly religious terms.