Anglo-Saxon Anachronism

Trump’s praise of the founding stock is a great representation of ‘based signaling’

A month after the end of World War I, Woodrow Wilson met with King George V, marking the first time a sitting president met with the British monarch. The king wished to release a statement celebrating America and England’s shared Anglo-Saxon heritage. Wilson, a committed Anglophile who had written books celebrating that very same heritage, rejected the request.

“You must not speak of us … as cousins, still less as brothers; we are neither. Neither must you think of us as Anglo-Saxons, for that term can no longer be rightly applied to the people of the United States,” Wilson told the king.

Over a century later, Donald Trump proudly proclaimed America’s shared heritage with the UK during his meeting with King Charles III.

For nearly two centuries before the Revolution, this land was settled and forged by men and women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here, on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain’s distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride… The American Patriots who pledged their lives to independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true.

It’s remarkable a president would say this in 2026 when Wilson’s insistence that “Anglo-Saxons” no longer applies to the people of the United States is far more true than it was in 1918. (Just a few years later, America restricted immigration in part to preserve its Anglo-Saxon character.) It’s a statement that would’ve led to a full week of outrage in the first term. This time, it elicited more lukewarm outrage and was forgotten the next day. The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait was one of the few liberals to take particular umbrage at the comment.

“The analysis Trump endorsed is that America is defined not by its founding values but by its Anglo-Saxon cultural and genetic heritage,” Chait wrote. “This idea has radical consequences, some of which have already manifested under the administration.”

The liberal writer overstates the case a bit. It’s true that Trump’s framing helps make a case against America as an open borders shopping mall. But it’s more a case of “based signaling” rather than a sign of a genuine upsurge in Anglo-Saxonism. It’s hard to worry about such a thing as America approaches white minority status and fewer Americans are even aware of what an Anglo-Saxon is. Even the Right isn’t that interested in Anglo-Saxon identity. Right-wingers like to trot it out sometimes to own the Left and signal proper political incorrectness. But they’re more interested in creating something different from America’s traditional WASP identity than reviving it.

There’s a stark contrast between the public response to Trump’s evocation and a similar episode from the first administration. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions hailed America’s Anglo tradition in much more milquetoast fashion in 2018. “The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo American heritage of law enforcement,” he said to the National Sheriffs Association. This banal comment inspired a wave of outrage at the time. Trump’s much stronger, more blood-related statement mostly received shrugs.

It’s a different time now and right-wing rhetoric is more publicly acceptable.

That’s not due to the public suddenly embracing its Anglo-Saxon heritage, however. It’s due to the retreat of woke and less concern for Trump’s various comments. In his second term, he’s called Somalis garbage, said white genocide is happening in South Africa, and called Hakeem Jeffries a “low IQ thug.” Evoking America’s Anglo-Saxon heritage is politically correct by comparison.

Trump also benefits from conservatism being more open to this rhetoric than it was a decade ago. “Heritage American” is a mainstream term, as are arguments that America is more than an idea. Talking about America’s Anglo-Saxon heritage would’ve raised more of a fuss from conservatives in the first admin. Not anymore.

The Anglo-Saxon comment comes at a time where the phrase hardly resonates with ordinary Americans. Very few Americans define themselves as Anglo-Saxon. If you did, it would be greeted with the same confusion as calling yourself a Viking or a Vandal. It isn’t relevant to the ordinary American experience.

One would struggle to find expressions of a self-conscious Anglo identity in the country. Obviously, our culture and social norms were primarily shaped by English settlers. But we don’t acknowledge that connection. We now just view those tendencies as “American” and open to all, regardless of ancestry.

Thanks to 23andMe, more white Americans identify as British/English on the census than they did a decade ago. But there are no signs that this has driven an upsurge in Anglo pride among American citizens. There are no Anglo festivals sprouting up or Anglo heritage societies forming. It’s just that DNA tests now reveal the truth to more Americans. However, there’s no real change in how these Americans see themselves.

In Woodrow Wilson’s day, many Americans were proud to call themselves Anglo-Saxon and this group, aware of its identity, was the majority of the country. It’s how we achieved immigration restriction. Today, whites are only 57 percent of the population, and that includes many who are far from Anglo-Saxon

Even though the American Right might like to occasionally proclaim Anglo-Saxonness, it’s moving away from the traits that defined this identity. Historically, Anglo-Saxon identity was tied to Protestantism, individualism, rationalism, capitalism, constitutionalism, and British heritage. Elements of the New Right seem eager to move beyond all this. Traditional Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are favored over Protestantism. Individualism is denounced as a weakness, as is capitalism. Rationalism is discarded in favor of village-crone irrationalism that resembles schizophrenia. The Constitution is seen as a suicide pact and the cause of American decline. Anglophobia is more popular than Anglophilia. One can see that with arguments that Spanish colonialism was superior to British colonialism. Other European ethnicities are favored and their respective histories are adopted as “our past.”

Some parts of the New Right would like to return to Anglo-Saxonism and the “Heritage American” concept is popular among all elements of the New Right. But now the Heritage American is imagined as a Russian Orthodox man who despised British traditions and norms. It’s an ahistorical image.

It’s important to remember that a lot of the New Right’s identity is a grab-bag of things derived from numerous sources. It can veer from traditional Catholic critiques of the Founding to declarations that this is Anglo-Saxon land in Xeets posted the same day. All of it goes together under the commitment to based signaling. Anything seen as inherently right-wing and offensive to the Left can be adopted for posting purposes. It explains Trump’s endorsement of Anglo-Saxon heritage, which was clearly written by a staffer engaged with Online Right memes.

It’s a good thing our president celebrates our nation’s true heritage, especially when it’s necessary to combat the open borders fanaticism of the Left. But it’s not a sign we’re bringing back this heritage. That may be fine as long as we make America great again through immigration restriction, meritocracy, and other sensible ideas.

America’s identity crisis is most apparent on the Right. It’s fighting and pondering over “who we are.” Trump’s comments aside, “Anglo-Saxons” doesn’t seem to be the answer.

You can now preorder Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.