The Dilemma Over What To Call America’s Core Demographic

One of the greatest challenges for American nationalists

America was founded and shaped by a particular people who continue as its core demographic today. The problem is there’s no good term to specify who these people are.

There is no set term for “ethnic Americans.” Ethnic American is certainly not the term. In our country, ethnic connotes somebody different from the majority or the founding stock. White ethnics are the best example, but the term also applies to non-white immigrants who don’t look like John Smith. Many of these people self-identify simply as “American,” but American in common parlance doesn’t connote an ethnicity. The GAE’s propaganda has worked effectively to make American simply mean “citizen of the United States”. Much of the core demographic who identify as Americans on the census would agree with that. “Anyone can be an American,” as we’re told from kindergarten onwards. 

In Russia, there are two different terms to describe a Russian. “Russkiye” describes ethnic Russians; “rossiyane” describes citizens of the Russian Federation. For example, a Tajik citizen could be “rossiyane,” but not “russkiye.” All Russians know and understand the difference between the two. Unfortunately, we have no similar words in the American vernacular. 

America was founded by a distinct group of people who gifted a unique culture and traditions to this country. They were predominantly Anglo-Protestants. I’ve argued for the necessity to acknowledge this Anglo heritage when we discuss America. Most Anglo Americans describe their heritage as something other than Anglo (such as Irish or German), even though their ancestry is primarily British. But fewer families tell their kids they’re part-English. They’d rather focus on the more “exotic” ethnic ancestry. Several Anglo Americans insist they are Irish or Italian, even though their ancestors were primarily British and their surname is English.

I’ve said before that the best term to describe the founding stock is Anglo Americans. It clearly describes who founded the country and their heritage. They were Anglos after all and all old stock assimilated into Anglo America. It emphasizes that we were not a multicultural nation at the start, but one founded by a people with a shared language, culture, and ancestry. Yes, there were other ethnicities in America at the time, but they eventually became Anglo Americans themselves. Just do a DNA test or research your family line to see all the English ancestors you have. If you have a lot of ancestors who were here 200 years ago, it’s guaranteed you’re very Anglo. 

Other terms can be used interchangeably with Anglo American. Heritage American, Founding American/stock, Old Stock (the favored term in Canada), historic American people, and Ancestral Americans all mean the same thing. Anglo is the best term as it says who these people are, where they came from, and just sounds better.

But Anglo American doesn’t necessarily include all of America’s core demographic, nor do a lot of people see themselves as Anglos. It also ties us to another country. When people hear Anglo, they think of Brits–not Americans. It’s a good term to distinguish Founding Stock Americans from white ethnics. But it’s not a good political term for who we want to represent.

Many people on our side prefer other terms for this broader group of people. Some say it’s simply just “whites.” But Americans hate defining themselves simply as whites. They find it very weird that anyone would rally around “white identity.” The Alt Right learned this in 2017. Yes, a lot of this is due to regime propaganda, but the increased censorship ensures this taboo isn’t going away anytime soon. White is also a very broad term with a lot of ambiguity. The U.S. census defines Middle Easterners and North Africans as white, even though they don’t see themselves as white. Use of the term inevitably leads to never ending debates over who is white and who is not.. Meanwhile, ordinary whites don’t find “white identity” appealing and the system cracks down on anyone who advocates for it. It’s too broad and not specific to who we are as Americans.

The term also leads to silly ideas such as pan-Europeanism and getting worked up about things happening in places far away from America. We want to focus on America first, not LARP as EVROPA. Most attempts at building a “white identity” for Americans results in an artificial form of Euro multiculturalism. Old Alt Right propaganda videos would feature Slavic folk dances, Greek statues, and German paintings as the identity for middle Americans. None of these things relate to the actual heritage of America. It’s just a grab bag of stuff ripped from Europe. It resembles the goofiness of black nationalists and their attempts to appropriate ancient Egypt. Nationalist movements appeal to the actual history and culture of its people, not transposing an artificial identity on its people. 

Many on the Dissident Right like the term “Amerikaners.” I hate this term. The German word for American implies that Germans were the true founding stock of America. They weren’t. It’s also the name given to a black and white cookie. I am not a black and white cookie. It’s a foreign word to Americans. They don’t speak German and it’s exoticifying something that should be natural to them. You would not go up to someone in real life and say: “Hello fellow Amerikaner!” Nobody would know what the hell you’re talking about and at no point will this term be normalized. It does offer the advantage of being one word.

There is another good one word term: settler. Leftists and Ameriindians love to deploy “settler” as an anti-white slur. A popular left-wing tract, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, excoriates America’s founding stock for building a nation for themselves and their posterity. Settler is also a popular term on our side. Commentators such as Ann Coulter love to remind people that we are a nation of settlers, not immigrants. It’s a term that could resonate with people. It evokes our nation’s past and reminds us who actually made this country. It’s also more “inclusive” than other terms such as Founding stock. Any American who identifies with the Founding stock and is outside of the great BIPOC coalition could be called a settler. The Settlers book is chiefly concerned with denigrating the white working class, a group significantly composed of white ethnics who came after the Civil War. 

There’s a long history of people adopting insults as their defining name. Many Protestant denominations get their names from their enemies. Both blacks and gays have adopted slurs to describe themselves. (You’re just not allowed to use those slurs if you’re part of the out-group.) Settler will certainly grow in popular parlance as leftists continue to push anti-white, anti-colonialist nonsense in schools and in media. Maybe the historic American people will adopt Settlers as their word to spite their enemies…

However, Settlers suffers from the same problem as all these terms. It’s not how ordinary Americans describe themselves. The reality is our people describe themselves as Americans. Some may say they’re Irish-American or Italian-American on the census, but if asked point-blank for their identity, they’d simply say American. 

The most pragmatic answer to this dilemma is to make American mean “ethnic American” and popularize a term to describe those who are simply U.S. citizens. We could call them just that, U.S. citizens. We could use the somewhat awkward term “USian,” as our good friend Nemets does. Maybe even “paper American” might be the best term. There are many options here. 

The main purpose is to distinguish ethnic Americans from U.S. citizens. Russians have the benefit of russkiye and rossiyane; we don’t–yet!

We can use a variety of terms interchangeably with American. Anglo American, Heritage American, Settler, etc. all work. Just please don’t use Amerikaner. 

But the primary term that appeals to people and is how they see themselves is American. It’s up to us to make it mean more than a sheet of paper.