but the vague criteria still don’t really work American nationalism into a white supremacist framework—eg, Barack Obama’s maternal grandfather was born in Kansas and fought in WW2, and Donald Trump paternal grandfather was born in Bavaria and maternal grandfather was born in Ireland
Yeah I’ve got ancestors from pre-Revolution Pennsylvania who owned people, ancestors who fought and died for the Union, ancestors who illegally immigrated from Ireland, and ancestors who legally immigrated from Slovakia. Real Americans often have complex family histories!
Trying to shove American citizenship into a tightly defined box based on a pure lineage is about as un-American as you can get!
It’s weird too because he’s accepting the Ellis Island narrative of destitute peasants and backfilling it to the beginning. Writing out the various and simply political fanatics who came prior to the civil war.
Right!! Most of our “founding stock” or whatever he wants to call them wouldn’t be welcome in his vision of America.
At the time when her ancestors immigrated the complaint, in upstate NY at least, was that the radical abolitionists found recruiting to their cause very easy among new arrivals. Imagining immigration of peasants makes our national story charity, instead of inspiring ideologues too.