“America is an idea” sounds like the kind of thing an American president would say on the season finale of a tv show. Patriotic music would swell in the background as he said it, probably a few minutes before the closing credits. It’s not surprising that some people who see themselves as edgy intellectual dissidents have reacted to the feel-good suggestion that “America is an idea” by insisting that, “No, it’s not.”

And there clearly are at least some senses in which “America is an idea” might be a silly thing to say. If we want to predict the behavior of the American state around the world, for example, extrapolating its likely behavior from first principles about “American ideals” isn’t going to be a reliable method. It certainly wouldn’t lead you to expect that the Trump administration would announce sweeping and draconian new penalties against countries that buy Venezuelan oil (on the grounds that President Nicolás Maduro stole the last Venezuelan election) even as the United States continues to import hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude every single day from Saudi Arabia.

Even so, the rising chorus of voices on the Right who relish in insisting that “America is not an idea” is disturbing. They’re rejecting the best thing about this country.