Maybe. One thing to like about the "melting pot" analogy is that people from one culture exposed to a different dominant culture don't just retain their distinct character as if it was like the pieces of carrot in a salad, they are altered by this experience.

Chicken Tikka Masala didn't exist in India. And if you went to any British restaurant in 1900 they wouldn't serve this dish either. But in a British Indian restaurant today it's a staple because at some point (when and by who is debated) somebody in one of those restaurants was like "We should make a sauce to match local tastes" and it was created.

I think the sweet spot is somewhere in between. You want enough of a melting pot that everyone gets plenty of exposure to the mainstream culture, but enough of a salad bowl that they can "take a break" and relax in the culture they are familiar with.

>The American melting pot works well (or worked well) because it was a nation made up from a blank canvas with no prior historically established dominant ethnicity

That's a bit of an oversimplification. They were British colonies for well over 100 years before declaring independence. The US Census website states:

"Not surprisingly, the first census reported that based on the names of heads of families, more than 90% of the White population in 1790 hailed from British stock: English (83.5%), Scottish (6.7%) and Irish (1.6%)."

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/12/boston-tea-pa...

>And even at that was built on first disenfranchizing (to put it midly) the natives.

Not many European colonial powers purchased land from natives the way the US did. For example, considering the Louisiana Purchase area, the US paid over 20x as much to natives living in that area as the US paid to France:

https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/201...

The US looks bad compared with a hypothetical (nonexistent) perfect country. But compared with European powers, it looks pretty good.

> Human change can be subject to the law of large numbers, but nothing necessitates any particular change being towards progress.

The same can be said of the "Great Man Theory" (or its adaptation by selecting immigrants based on some selected set of skills). You don't know that you're making society better, you're just selecting for a certain set of skills.

> The American melting pot works well (or worked well) because it was a nation made up from a blank canvas with no prior historically established dominant ethnicity or culture the kind other nations have had going for millenia.

This isn't true and it ignores the cultural differences amongst all of the original colonists (religious, language, political, and country of origin). That's before you even consider the stark differences in culture between the Native Americans and the European colonist.

In America there's a very sharp geographical distinction between which people oppose the melting pot and which see it as a core part of the American experience.

People from the big immigrant cities like NYC, SF, LA are more likely to hold the latter position.

People can feel how they want to feel, campaigns are run on feelings and not facts. Just because Trump says Haitians are eating cats and dogs doesn't make it true.

The Mormons of Utah, the Cajun/French of Louisiana, the Norwegians in the Dakotas, the Scotch Irish of everywhere, and the Amish are all (non-brown) examples of enclaves existing in the US. Nobody says that they are not assimilating well. We let them live their lives because personal liberty used to be a thing here.

A large number of those people are only a few generations removed from immigrant ancestors.