[mwfunk]

America has historically been unusual in that it was explicitly founded on commonly shared ideas rather than ethnic, religious, or regional identities. Obviously it has fallen short of that ideal many times throughout its history, but for the most part it resembles a country trying to asymptotically approach that ideal, decade after decade.

In that sense it lacks some inherent culture because it's a collection of different people who came here from all over the world. Japan (and most other older nations) has a shared ethnic and religious identity that goes back centuries or millennia, whereas America by definition doesn't really have that. Instead it's an amalgamation of all of the different people who live here. To me, "American culture" means going to downtown Mountain View, CA for dinner and getting to choose from dozens of amazing cuisines from all over the world (with varying degrees of authenticity, but still).

Even food/cultural artifacts/etc. which are strongly associated with America tend to be things brought here from other places and cultures and adapted to local tastes.

The "blood and soil" people are especially alarming to me because what they're most passionate about is attempting to retcon America into being based on religious/ethnic/geographic identity politics rather than what actually makes America somewhat unique and successful, which is simply the fact that it's based on ideas rather than tribalism, and was designed as a haven from tribalism in other countries.

I'm sure someone will read this and get all up in arms about the gazillion times America has done horrible things that went against the very ideals that I just described. Trust me, I know. I'm not trying to idealize everything and sweep that stuff under the rug. Every country has always and will always deviate from its own principles, but it falls on patriots (as opposed to nationalists) to do whatever they can to help steer it back in the right direction. Patriotism should be about fixing things when they go wrong, not "my country right or wrong".