Part Two: Myth of the American Nation, Dixie’s Revenge

This article will be far shorter than the previous one.  To briefly summarize the previous article, America is not a nation because constant waves of immigration have prevented the creation of an “American” ethnic group. The constant importation of immigrants means there is not a common history between Americans (while some citizens have links to the Founding, many people who are just as “American” have been here less than a generation). There are no cultural values that are uniquely American, that are actually shared by most Americans, nor are we even unified by common language. While the language issue likely goes away if we were to say “white Americans,” the other issues are still present. While theoretically a nation can be based around a common language, it likely needs to be a language unique to that area. For instance, 1.5 billion people throughout the world speak English; if we were to argue speaking English alone is what unifies people as “Americans,” then all those people have claim to being American as well.  

If we narrow the “nation” group to just Southerners, it becomes easier to defend the group as a nation. There’s less immigration to the South than the North (historically and today), so Southerners are more likely to speak English in their home than in parts of the country with greater immigrant population. While dialects themselves are not languages, the dialect map of America does separate these different portions of America apart into more unified polities.

I’m not the first to make this argument. Others have argued Southerners should be seen as an ethnic group. On a broader level, white Southerners are less ethnically diverse than white Northerners. Southerners are primarily of British (both Celtic and Anglo) genetic descent, with some French and German admixture. Some might argue against “common descent” simply because there is no DNA test that indicates people as “Southern,” but that doesn’t necessarily indicate that a genetic basis for the group doesn’t exist. I’m not going to go into the details for how DNA tests work, Dr. JF Gariepy did a great video that looks at the different traits that are used to determine different groups and that covers it far better than I could. The fact that no test has been designed to test genetic markers for “Southerner” does not mean a test cannot be made.  

There are several aspects to the “Common History” part of the “nation” definition for the South. Some children of the South manifest a link to the common history in the unhealthy way they feel they must apologize for the sins of their ancestors in the War of Northern Aggression. This is most apparent in the shameful way Lee, Jackson, and Davis’ descendants betray their ancestors. These feelings of shame will only be felt by a native Southerner, one brainwashed by the school system, not a child of Yankee transplants. The guilt can only exist if there is a sense of connection to that history.

A healthier aspect of the “Common History” has been discussed by David Hackett Fischer, who argued that the different regions of America were seeded by different groups from the British Isles. One may infer from such arguments that Americans are a unified people just like the English are: they just have different sub-regional identities. However, this only would make sense if those seeded groups stayed homogeneous. As discussed in Part 1, constant waves of immigration diluted the initial stock of the country and make such common historical links nebulous.

The South was the main region that avoided massive immigration from Europe and has a better claim of its citizens (even today) having common history with one another. You’re far more likely to find a 2^nd generation immigrant in New York than you are in Charleston. The constant waves of immigrants went to New York, where industrial growth flourished, not to the South. In fact, there was internal migration away from the South for jobs after the War. Obviously, there were also carpetbaggers who invaded after the War to make money, but this was a small group of people, likely far smaller even than the Norman conquerors in England who didn’t change the genetic stock of England (but still do make up an elite in the U.K.).

Culture is another area where Southerners are largely unified. Intuitively, the Southern man seems to have more of the naturally independent yeoman farmer attitude (much to the chagrin of our remnant aristocratic class). Southerners are more culturally conservative than other areas of the country and Southerners are more unified religiously than the rest of the country. One can look at how prevalent Evangelicals are in the South, compared to other regions, but the South is more religious than the North in general. While part of the reason the South is more religious than the North is due to the large number of black Baptists, even just looking at the whites, Southerners have greater religiosity than Northerners (particularly, New England). In addition, the South is largely Protestant (aside from Louisiana and other outliers) and there are fewer atheists. This cultural connection likely stems from the common descent and history for Southerners that isn’t present in the North.

The basis of a nation, any nation, is the family. A group of families makes a local community. A group of local communities, that have common ties, makes a nation. A nation is an extension of the family network. Tucker Carlson, in the debate with Charlie Kirk, advocated thinking of people from a nation as a big family, which got more cheers and claps than anything else in the discussion. This is because of the basis of what a nation is and how people naturally crave this authentic identity and bond.

In the multiethnic, “progressive” hellscape that is America today, one is hard pressed to see a national identity which unifies everyone who holds American citizenship. Some people may want to push back on this, but think about it for a moment: what does the average white Yankee have in common with the average Southerner that he doesn’t also have in common with the average Brit, Canadian, or Australian person? If you look just at the South, you see what can be called an ethnic group with a shared history and a shared identity.

We must focus on what makes us a unique and special people, as Southerners, not “Americans.” If we do so, we will have a far more authentic nationalism.

-By Ethan the Autiste