By an almost 2-to-1 margin.

This idea is not only impractical, discriminatory, and thuddingly empty, but also completely ignorant of — not to mention disrespectful to — this nation’s history.

At the time of the revolution, for example, viele Amerikaner kamen aus Deutschland, also war Deutsch fast unsere nationale Sprache. But it would have been stupid and short-sighted to make German the official language, as anyone can see in retrospect.

The idea that a language unifies or defines a culture is based on a bizarrely narrow, uninformed, and misplaced sense of what makes a culture worth having. And America’s culture is profoundly defined and shaped for the better by people who came here speaking — and continued to speak for generations — languages from all over the world.

Hell, you don’t even need to speak someone’s language to communicate or understand. Interpersonal communication is perhaps 90% non-verbal. You can even hear tone of voice just in reading, sometimes even through languages whose words you can barely parse.

Les mots que Thomas Jefferson ont choisi, for example, d’encadrer la démocratie américaine — la vie, la liberté, et la poursuite du bonheur (sound familiar?) — ont été inspirés en partie par les idées des philosophes français pendant l’Enlightenment. Without somebody speaking French, we ain’t got no damn America, or at least it isn’t quite the same. But some of these people who voted today think the French are our natural enemies. Jeebus. In vari periodi, l’America ha assorbito gli immigranti numerosi dall’Italia, and somehow la Repubblica survived. From Ireland came entire ships full of oibrithe iomarcacha na hÉireannaigh. From all over the world, we’ve had speakers of every language you can think of, and even a population of millions of kidnapped slaves-turned-citizens from Africa, although their languages were yanked away by force, and terendiroo mang beteyaa, or so I read.

Do you know what all of those words mean? Neither do I. But you know exactly the gist of what I just said.

In over two centuries of constant immigration, never once has an official language been important enough to bother with. And in these days of the Internet, massive multilingual communication, and translation tools at our fingertips, never has an official language been less necessary. Not even close.

But it’s an election year. And for about 30% of this country, fear is an emotion that overrides everything else.

But esta idea no tiene nada hacer con solucionar ninguna problemas, y nada hacer con la inmigración o la integración. Es unicamente sobre el miedo y la intolerancia y una necesidad que la gente débil tiene para la ilusión del control. Es vergonzosa. Es pathetic as hell.

Es unamerican.

En una palabra, es bullshit.

In any language.