What an interesting question to start with. My spontaneous answer is that it identifies the difference between the U.S. but also Canadian or Australian senses of the people and a traditional European sense of what the people is.
In German, that would be volk. The folk, the people, would be defined by blood and soil. It would be an ethnic definition of the people.
The U.S. definition of the people, like also the French and British definition, is a civic democratic definition. That seems to be an important difference. Traditionally, not everyone could become a German or a Pole, but everyone and anyone can become an American.
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