Most Americans – if they think about the country’s founding – focus on “All men are created equal”. Alas, when our founders wrote those words, they didn’t mean them. Oh, they meant the “men” part. Only men could be other men’s equals. But by “men”, they meant only men like themselves: white, wealthy, land owning Christians. It was a very exclusive club. At the same time, a few of those wealthy, white, Christian men understood that they were NOT what made the American experiment unique. James Madison insisted we make “E Pluribus Unum” our motto and place it on our Great Seal. We remain a great idea poorly executed. We still get the “All men created equal” part wrong. This is why “E Pluribus Unum” matters. It’s the founding principle our founders got right!

The nations of Europe all evolved slowly over nearly two thousand years. Franks, Angles, Alamanni, Vandals & Goths (among other tribes) coalesced eventually into “Germans”. Romans, Celts, Franks, Iberians and Ligurians became “French”. Romanised Celts plus Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians became “English”. This is the case for most cultures and nations around the world. America was the first nation composed of all the other nations.

Not Superior Genes, Superior GERMS

The Europeans succeeded in the New World for one reason only: their pathogens wiped out the Native populations before the Native populations could wipe out the Europeans. If every European venture had vanished like the Roanoke Colony did, Europe would never have gained the foothold required to maintain a presence here.

Every other nation’s people arrived at a blank slate with no cultural heritage of its own. That made American culture unique. One could settle places – emptied by disease – and reproduce one’s home country. Now, Europeans have always had it in their heads that their culture beats all other cultures. Of course Europeans would think that. That doesn’t make it true. It isn’t.

In white peoples’ defense, they can be talented, clever and industrious. So can every other group that came to America pursuing a better future. White people are no different.

Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor…

Take immigrants and immigration off the table and America never becomes America. That is, if we take all immigrants minus white people off the table. White people are immigrants here same as the rest of us. The only difference is, they’ve convinced themselves they’ve been here forever and therefore own the joint. Not true and not true.

E Pluribus Unum mattered when Madison insisted on it and it matters today. The motto didn’t originate here. E Pluribus Unum – in one form or another – goes back over two thousand years. “The phrase refers to Cicero‘s paraphrase of Pythagoras in his De Officiis, as part of his discussion of basic family and social bonds as the origin of societies and states: “When each person loves the other as much as himself, it makes one out of many”. Hmmmmmm That sounds a lot like “Do unto others”, no?

How else would a diverse group of people coexist peacefully together if not by doing unto each other?

Back To The 50’s – the 1850’s

Every election since 2018 has proved that E Pluribus Unum matters (now more than ever). Donald Trump himself famously said the unspoken part out loud: whenever more people vote, it’s always bad for Republicans. That’s because the GOP has made itself the White Man’s Party. It’s goal: drag America back – kicking and screaming – to the 1850’s, when everyone knew their places.

That – as the election results keep demonstrating ain’t going to happen. The only thing standing in the way of more Americans voting is Republican voter suppression. Raphael Warnock just defeated Herschel Wacker in the Georgia Senate runoff. But, Warnock did that with a million fewer voters voting. That wasn’t lack of enthusiasm pushing that turnout lower, it was voter suppression efforts: a much shorter election period, far fewer drop boxes, more restrictions. Warnock won regardless. If every Georgian voter who wanted to vote could have voted? Warnock would have buried Walker.

Fascism’s American Fatal Flaw

Fascism has succeeded everywhere it succeeded because it arose in a homogeneous population. German culture has baked compliance into its architecture. Mussolini had the same advantage in Italy. People of a similar culture banding together as a statement of their culture. That is why fascism can’t ever succeed in America. It may sweep a significant percentage of white people into its embrace, it won’t appeal to anyone else. And, while American fascists are armed to the teeth, so are a lot of people.

We’re about to purge a lot of fascists from our armed forces by the way. Take that to the bank and prepare to get rich.

While the Republican Party becomes the Angry White Man’s Party, the Democrats become increasingly diverse – and more representative of America. That’s why more Americans – whether registered as Democrats or not – choose Democrats to represent them. The insurrectionists are pretty much exclusively white. They want to keep all the power and money in white hands. America, they insist, is a white nation.

That’s even stupider than it sounds.

E Pluribus Unum is America’s secret sauce and our saving grace. It’s the authentic counter to “All men’s” in-authenticity. More than ever, E Pluribus Unum matters.