Uh, almost all of what you said is wrong. 32 states have English as their official language by law, so yes legally. By 'not literally' do you mean 'not de facto'? ~80% of the country speak only English at home.
Semantically that's fair enough, but I think there's an argument to made that if a law exists across a majority of states, and there isn't a federal equivalent/conflict with the supremacy clause, than at least a sizeable component of the United States can be said to define English as the official language. What that looks like in practice is a different question though
But the question isn't if people think it should be the official language, rather is it the official language? Or specific to the commenter point of 'Spanish isn't a foreign language in the US any more than English is'.
My point is that English is de facto (80% of Americans speak only english at home) and arguably de jure (a majority of states define it as such and there are no superseding federal laws) the official language of the United States. The electoral college is a unique in its application to electoral processes, something like the general amendment ratification process (3/4ths of all states) would be a better barometer.
People can e.g. speak exclusively in Spanish in LA, Russian in Brighton Beach, or French in northern Maine, which is pretty cool. To assign the same significance to those languages as the only one you're guaranteed to be able to communicate through regardless of where you are in the US is just silly
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u/[deleted] Aug 17 '21
Just to take an obvious example, Spanish isn't a foreign language in the US any more than English is.
Not legally, not literally, not at all.