The USA is a principle, not an ethnicity

Most countries are built around a central ethnicity.  Not the USA.

America got started off differently and it has stayed different.  Ethnicity divided us, but we had documents and ideals to pull us together.  Americans were supposed to be dedicated to some propositions.

Abraham Lincoln

It was an ideal, not a reality.

The 13 British colonies that broke away to form the US were settled by people from different places.  Protestant Puritans from England settled Massachusetts. Religious schisms there created Rhode Island.  Maryland was settled by British Catholics.  New York by the Dutch. Pennsylvania by Quakers and Germans. 

This is not the normal manner of nations.  Nation states represent ethnicities and languages. The Han Chinese are the core of a nation.  Serbs are Serbian.  Russia is Russian. The French are French. Borders are most secure and safe where the national border matches the ethnic one.

Not America. The American principle was "All men are created equal."  The reality is that full citizenship and civic participation was for white Protestants, expanded in the 20th Century to white Christians. That was the central governing core of "real" Americans.  Others were here but were hyphenated in some way. 

Mass migration is changing America again.  Census.gov 

Migration from Latin America and Asia in the past 50 years, combined with the slow digestion of women's empowerment meant a new America: women visibly in places of power, blacks visible in Hollywood and sports and the workforce, Asians excelling in schools and visible everywhere. There are about 42,000,000 foreign born in the USA now.

As a percentage of the population, back to the Ellis Island era

High immigration creates tensions, ones exacerbated because people have legal rights that are now generally respected under the law. The discriminatory customs that kept earlier waves of immigrants and people of color marginalized are prohibited, and disadvantaged people have access to advocates and the courts.  

I support immigration.  I like immigration.  I think we profit from having immigrants. I recognize that not everyone agrees.  Immigration brings change. Whites are in fact being displaced from centrality into mere primacy. 

Backtracking

Trump's election is partly understandable as an expression of public concern over the status adjustment of whites and males. Make America Great Again was a vague promise of return to some good old day when white men being in charge was a given. 

The pushback against "political correctness" is a pushback against behavior and language that demands cultural respect for people who--in earlier times--could be openly disrespected and marginalized.  

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is openly and actively at work refocusing the priorities of the Justice Department away from housing and other areas of discrimination toward drug and immigration enforcement.  

Democrats have some great advantages here.  Progressives have irrevocably won a demographic war.  America is in fact a great mixture of races and religions.  White males remain the most dominant group, but they are one among many, and smaller in number than white females. We have diversity.  We have a multi-cultural society united by law.

Democrats have the advantage of the patriotic idea.  This blog has urged Democrats and progressives to re-connect with patriotism as a public virtue.  Patriotism refers back to ideas and founding documents that start with a premise of inclusion and equality.  Patriotism is the opposite of white ethno-nationalism promoted by Trump. Trump has successfully linked himself and whiteness, to the flag, the national anthem, and the military. His ethnic attacks on Mexicans and Muslims established a we-they divide of white Americans against a caricature enemy, ungrateful and dangerous people of color.  It served the prejudices of his base. But the grand words school children memorize serve the opposite principles, equality and inclusion. The flag belongs to Democrats if they will advance candidates who embrace it.

Democrats have the advantage of the law. Most laws enforce equality and fair dealing. It is in the habitual custom and practice in the zone of secrecy that prejudicial profiling and prejudicial behaviors flourish. Racism happens when the law isn't looking. The rule of law is the progressive's friend.

Democrats have a political challenge in 2018.  How to link the interests of aspiring minorities with those of white working people, and to do so without offending their base of educated urbanites.  

Is there a common denominator?  Yes. Patriotism and law and order, linked back to the founding documents of inclusion and equality. Robert Kennedy had it back in 1968 when he advanced the unifying themes of anti-discrimination, patriotism, and lawfulness--all together.  It meant he advocated for blacks but opposed black looting. It meant he advocated for blue collar whites but did not condone their racial prejudices. Urban sophisticates are comfortable with the language of the founding documents.

Patriotism works for Democrats.