In my seemingly never-ending quest to try to understand the American political “right,” I recently came across the term “heritage American.” It was in The Atlantic, largely behind a paywall.
“In August, a guest on Tucker Carlson’s podcast said something that immediately caught his interest. The United States faces a fundamental rift ‘between heritage Americans and the new political class,’ Auron MacIntyre, a columnist for Blaze Media, argued…
“‘You could find their last names in the Civil War registry,’ MacIntyre explained. This ancestry matters, he said, because America is not ‘a collection of abstract things agreed to in some social contract.’ It is a specific set of people who embody an ‘Anglo-Protestant spirit’ and ‘have a tie to history and the land.’ MacIntyre continued: “If you change the people, you change the culture.”
This is a bit murky for me. In the American Reformer, the article Wise Men Have Left Us an Inheritance by Ba Visiting Assistant Professor at the Declaration of Independence Center at the University of Mississippi, is more explicit.
How does one qualify?
He gets right to my concerns about heritage Americans. “This way of thinking and speaking is foreign to us today, and it also raises suspicions: is this a euphemism for exclusion and discrimination? Is this a return to an ugly and terrifying fascist ideology? What must one do to ‘qualify’ as a heritage American? Am I included?
“Heritage America is best understood as involving seven inheritances: the English language, Christianity, self-government, Christian government, liberty, equality under the law, and relationship with the physical land.”
These are well-described. For instance, with “the loss of civilizational confidence among English speakers and the ideological dominance of ‘diversity and inclusion,’ there is little will among Americans to resist a linguistic revolution.” I agree, but I don’t see it as the bad thing the author fears. The American version of English has always been enriched by its diversity.
Whew! I made it!
At least Black Americans can be Heritage Americans, according to some. “They have ancestral roots that go back to the beginning of the American colonies as well as collective memories from every period of American history. Black Americans speak English, even if in distinctive and subcultural dialects; they have historically been Christians, and in a tragic way, they have a relationship to America’s land unlike anyone else. Even though blacks were historically denied liberty, equality under the law, and participation in government, they have slowly been accorded these rights and privileges.” Thanks, I think.
Leaning into his Scotch-Irish roots
The Politico article from July 2025 is The Online Right’s Favorite Nativist Slogan Is Gaining Traction in the Real World by Ian Ward. It is subtitled, “Daniel Boone, burial plots and no birthright citizen: Welcome to the MAGA world of ‘Heritage America.'”
I should not be surprised: “In a speech at the National Conservative Conference in July 2024, then-Sen. Vance delivered a broadside against creedal nationalism, arguing that ‘America is not just an idea’ but ‘a group of people with a common history and a common future.’ Creedal nationalism, which is how I have long understood the country’s mission, means that people become Americans because of their values; in other words, the melting pot.
So, I remain uncomfortable with the exclusionary status of the term, even though I personally “rate” in part because of my three Civil War great-great-grandfathers. A heritage American DOES feel like “a euphemism for exclusion and discrimination,” with their accident of birth providing them privilege. But if you are more savvy about the term, you may try to convince me otherwise.