The Know-Nothing 27% aren’t defined by the parties they vote for, but by their bigotry and ignorance and inability to think critically. By the same token, voters who aren’t Know-Nothings may vote for far-right parties. The point is that liberal and progressive and (one hopes) centrist parties should be writing off the first group and focusing money and resources on the second group.
A political party that panders to racists, sexists, and anti-Semites is by definition not one where decent people are making decisions.
During the Civil War. That’s when it changed from “these United States” to “the United States”.
Before that, they did also identify as “American”, but it was a geographic rather than political identity, like Asian/African/European versus Japanese/Nigerian/Austrian. Their primary identification was state-based; Virginian, Californian, etc.
Will centrist neolibs, and especially the voters who support them, EVER realize that serving plutocrats instead of the rest of us is little more than a way to set the stage for politicians who are even further to the right than they are?
I think it has to do with how just under 19 years ago, the USA suddenly took a turn towards military fetishisation, one that was so strong and all-encompassing that it still creeps me out when I visit the old home. I say this as someone who served for three years in the US Army, that there is no other word for it than “fetishisation”.
I have been living as an expatriate ever since I turned 21, and would gladly trade in my USA citizenship for a EU one. I don’t identify as German, but I do feel like I belong here and the EU is my home.
That requires more critical thinking than most of them are capable of. And for the rest, they think it’s more like a game of Hot Potato, where you can scam a profit as long as you aren’t caught holding the potato when the music stops.
I agree with this, and I think historians do as well.
However, changing the perspective, the underlying shared identity @zathras refers to is the basis for the economic measures used as a tool to reach a political integration beyond the 19th century concept of nationalism. (A re-birth of said nationalism is the lever now applied neo-fascists to pry apart the union.)
This “shared identity” is a fiddly thing, though, because most people are not aware that there are various parts of their identity, or they have several at once.
Gaveston is the example I had in mind: an open homosexual relationship that was of no consequence until Gaveston pissed of the other aristocrats by going beyond his station. For the elites, loyalty is all that matters.
