Finding America in the Hamptons: Rachel Campos-Duffy’s All American Patriotism

With the historic 250th anniversary of American democracy being celebrated this year, All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of America’s Greatness, a new book by New York Times bestselling author and television host Rachel Campos-Duffy, is now available.

The book offers an inspirational POV on what makes America so beautiful—beyond the country as geography and borders, to a place of memory, inheritance, gratitude, argument, and belonging. Patriotism is easy to appreciate and easy to pick up, whether you are on the beach, sitting with a morning coffee, or looking for something that reminds you to pause for a moment and think.

The contributors included in the book may be familiar to many readers, and part of the book’s charm is how personal so many of the reflections feel. These are not abstract essays about patriotism; rather, memories, places, people, rituals, and small scenes that broaden the panorama of life in America.

Review / Thoughts

At its heart, All American Patriotism is a great way to keep gratitude central to patriotism. Not the loud kind of patriotism that demands agreement, but the quieter, steadier kind that asks us to pause and reflect on how much we have to be grateful for in America.

Reading this delightful book on a sandy Hamptons beach, with the sounds of children playing, dogs walking by, and waves folding onto the shoreline, I found myself doing something that is increasingly rare: considering what I am grateful for as an American. Good books have a way of doing that. They slow you down. They create room for thought.

In that sense, All American Patriotism is almost the opposite of social media. There is no pesky comments section filled with vitriol, no attention-grabbing graphics, no algorithm tugging your sleeve and telling you what to be angry about next. Instead, the book gives the reader space. Space to think, to remember, to feel grateful.

A thread of gratitude and respect connects so much of the book. To love “America” is to look outside yourself, beyond the people you know, past the vast and abundant lands, and toward a deeper layer of connection that can so easily be muted by the moments and moods of life in America. 

“A Shared Character”

Living in the Hamptons has a way of making you love America more clearly. The nature, the history, the water, the old homes, the farms, the harbors, the libraries, the churches, the Main Streets—but most of all, the people.

There is a community here that represents what America is at its greatest: cooperation. If not always common ground, then at least shared ground. The waves have a way of washing away some of the noise and politics. The ocean has a humbling effect, and humility is useful in a democracy.

Like America at large—and at small—The Hamptons community defies easy convention or classification. It is old and new, rural and glamorous, quiet and extravagant, impossibly local and internationally known. To belong here is to care about life here.

To take time to reflect on how beautiful America is—as a place, as an idea, and above everything, as a people—is not naïve. It is necessary. Gratitude is not blindness. Gratitude is attention.

Campos-Duffy captures that intention in her own words:

“My hope is that this collection reminds us of who we are. We are the descendants of conquistadors, pilgrims, rebels, freedom-loving revolutionaries, Indian chiefs, pioneers, outlaws, emancipated slaves, missionaries, and rugged cowboys.

Ultimately, I want this book to give you a clearer sense of our shared character, shattering once and for all the identity crisis that grips the nation.”

That idea—shared character—is where the book finds its strength. 

A Sag Harbor Parade Leaves a Lasting Impression

One particularly resonant contribution with a Hamptons perspective comes from Bill Hemmer, a familiar Sag Harbor presence, who shares a memory of American greatness from a Memorial Day Parade in Sag Harbor. 

Bill describes Sag Harbor (“population: not many”) in the quaint, simple terms that make the small town an international destination. First of all, we all love the Sag Harbor MDW parade, but what struck me the most about his story was: “We all applaud and feel like we’re a part of a grateful nation.” Hemmer mentions the shared experience of collective respect – a togetherness that we can sometimes forget. 

Again, gratitude. 

America has never been one simple thing, and the Hamptons certainly never have been either. But there is a shared stake here. People come together in ways that can sometimes feel almost impossible, and then suddenly, wonderfully, neighborly.

A parade in Sag Harbor can do that. So can a beach cleanup, a school fundraiser, a fire department pancake breakfast, a Memorial Day ceremony, a Main Street conversation that begins with weather and ends somewhere near the meaning of life. Community is often built in these ordinary moments, and America, for all its size and noise, still depends on them.

That this beautiful democracy endures 250 years on as a City on a Hill cannot be overstated. It is not perfect (and never has been). But it remains extraordinary. And perhaps the most patriotic thing we can do is notice it—again and again—in the places we call home.

ALL AMERICAN PATRIOTISM is the perfect way to celebrate America in one of the country’s most celebrated destinations. Now available from FOX News Books.