[rayiner]

The US already had the highest standard of living in the world at the time of independence, before it became a multi-ethnic society. The country de Tocqueville wrote about was an overwhelmingly British country. The subsequent trajectory of the US has been one of chipping away at that foundation. The accommodation of vast numbers of immigrants from societies that had no tradition of self government, and little in the way of unifying cultural traditions, created a top-down society that can scarcely be called America.

Looking at migrants is a misleading indicator of preference, because the choice to emigrate is an aberrational one. Just 7-8% of people in south or east Asia would emigrate if they had the choice: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-mi....

[dctoedt]

> The accommodation of vast numbers of immigrants

Let's not forget that (European) immigrants were mostly wanted, so as to provide needed workers. Even the Chinese immigrants of the 19th century were wanted to help build railroads and the like. Racist anti-immigrant factions such as the Know-Nothings and the KKK never really gained the power needed even to try to stop immigration (with the notable exception of the Asian exclusion acts in the late-19th and early-20th centuries).

Scores of millions of Americans, including your servant, are descended from those European and Asian immigrants. Again, the "movie" is that over generations, those people became fully assimilated into American society and values.

As for "accommodating" the immigrants, that brings to mind Heinlein's dictum: Never argue with the weather. It's questionable whether the "British" America of, say, 1787, or even 1868, could have effectively prevented immigration.

We also shouldn't lose sight of the millions of involuntary "immigrants" who were brought here in chains from Africa.

[rayiner]

> Let's not forget that (European) immigrants were mostly wanted, so as to provide needed workers.

Sure. I’m talking about the long-term effects of that deliberate policy choice.

> Again, the "movie" is that over generations, those people became fully assimilated into American society and values.

Quite a bit of evidence shows that core cultural values, such as levels of social trust and attitudes towards the nature of government, are durable across generations: https://cis.org/Richwine/Still-More-Evidence-Cultural-Persis.... Scandinavian Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans to this day exhibit differing levels of social trust that mirrors those of their cousins back in Europe. The waves of immigrants didn’t “fully assimilate” into American society, they changed it into something entirely different.

An overlooked aspect of Donald Trump—who is barely a third generation American—is that he was the last nail in the coffin of British America. British American culture is no longer prevalent enough to sustain even one political party. The Trump GOP has dropped the distinctly British American idea of limited government and replaced it with a cult of personality that can appeal to immigrant Germans, Italians, and increasingly Latin Americans. If Trump acts like a Latin American dictator it’s because that’s what it takes to get all those people from disparate cultural backgrounds into a coalition that can get close to 50%.

People notice this shift, but because we have this mistaken notion that “white people” are a single group, we overlook what it means. It gets framed as the “death of the Reagan GOP.” It is, but more accurately it’s the death of the British American GOP.

[dctoedt]

> core cultural values, such as levels of social trust and attitudes towards the nature of government, are durable across generations

Interesting. Does that take into account the mixing of cultures as the generations go by? My own immigrant ancestors came to this country in the 19th- and early-20th centuries — from four different countries in northern- and southern Europe; two different religions; and arguably three distinct subcultures. My own kids have three more countries stirred into the mix from my wife's side — and her outlook and attitudes have influenced mine in the decades we've been together. Then there's the influence of the different places I've lived and worked. I can't imagine I'm unique.

> more accurately it’s the death of the British American GOP.

Which "British America[]"? The New Englanders like the Puritans, and later the Adamses? The mid-Atlantic Quakers? The Virginians? The Cavalier enslavers who came from their Carribean sugar plantations to grow cotton? Very different subcultures. (And if you want to talk about "top-down," consider the southern American subcultures.)

And which British American GOP — the now-extinct liberal northeasterners and -Midwesterners? The hard-core racist Southerners who were right-wing "Democrats" until the Nixon-Reagan-Atwater "Southern strategy" coaxed them to the GOP? The California Reaganites of Proposition 13?

> If Trump acts like a Latin American dictator it’s because that’s what it takes to get all those people from disparate cultural backgrounds into a coalition that can get close to 50%.

My guess is that Trump appeals to a certain fearful, hero-worshipping, authoritarian mindset that's widely distributed among the human population, and whose adherents have far greater ability to communicate and organize than ever before. We see that mindset today in the followers of Putin, Orbán, Kim, Maduro, etc., as well as those of Trump. (For that matter, the fascist Oswald Mosley was a Brit.)

[rayiner]

> Interesting. Does that take into account the mixing of cultures as the generations go by?

It’s using GSS data, which doesn’t identify ancestry in that level of granularity. But I suspect mixing changes the host culture significantly. My wife is of almost completely British American descent. I’m of completely Bangladeshi descent. But because in my culture married couples assimilate into the husband’s family, the kids are being raised with a strong dose of Bangladeshi traditionalism.

> Which "British America[]"? The New Englanders like the Puritans, and later the Adamses? The mid-Atlantic Quakers? The Virginians? The Cavalier enslavers who came from their Carribean sugar plantations to grow cotton? Very different subcultures.

The British America that was the confluence of those British sub-cultures—the things they agreed on and their distinctive conflicts. In particular, participatory self-government reflecting both Puritan small towns and Jeffersonian agrarianism has been supplanted by mass government.

The widespread American attitudes towards government is now similar to those in Bangladesh, which was shaped by half a millennium of Mughal and then British rule. The government is the administrator of a fractious and foreign population. “Democracy” is reduced to merely “voting.”

> My guess is that Trump appeals to a certain fearful, hero-worshipping, authoritarian mindset that's widely distributed among the human population, and whose adherents have far greater ability to communicate and organize than ever before.

That’s close to the same point that I’m making. Every society has conservatives and liberals—these are rooted in psychological traits. Specific conservative or liberal ideologies, however, are rooted in culture. When you change the country’s cultural mix, you change what kinds of political ideologies you need to carry a viable coalition. And when you fragment the culture, politics becomes much more about unifying around things that speak to gut-level reactions across cultures.

The small-government conservatism that would be popular in Rhode Island can’t win Florida. You need to cobble together a coalition of Mexicans in Arizona, Scots-Irish in West Virginia, Cubans and Puerto Ricans in Florida, Germans in Ohio, etc. And Trump is the manifestation of that.

[dctoedt]

> But because in my culture married couples assimilate into the husband’s family, the kids are being raised with a strong dose of Bangladeshi traditionalism.

But your kids aren't watching Bangladeshi TV, are they? And I'm guessing they don't run around with mostly-Bangladeshi friends.

You might be surprised how your kids are being influenced by your wife — and her family. I've read over the years that culture is transmitted primarily by the mother; that certainly fits what I've observed casually.

And let's not forget that at some point most kids tend to rebel — especially against authoritarian fathers (and then maybe later revert to what they remember from childhood).

> In particular, participatory self-government reflecting both Puritan small towns and Jeffersonian agrarianism has been supplanted by mass government.

Alexander Hamilton and his fellow Federalists would like a word. Jeffersonian thinking was certainly present at the Founding but was by no means dominant.

[dctoedt]

> Looking at migrants is a misleading indicator of preference, because the choice to emigrate is an aberrational one.

Sure, most people don't emigrate. That doesn't mean it's misleading that the U.S. is the migration destination of choice.

[dctoedt]

> created a top-down society that can scarcely be called America.

Really? The U.S. is notably less top-down than many other places that either of us could name. And nostalgia for an imagined bygone "British" past is unproductive.