Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove took square aim at Vice President JD Vance in a blistering op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, tearing apart his oft-stated idea that there is a distinct class of "heritage Americans" who are more American than other Americans.
"America wasn’t built by the rich and powerful but in large part by discards, rejects, losers and throwaways who made their way here," wrote Rove, who has been sounding the alarm about the vice president since before he even took office. He noted that his Norwegian father used to read him the Declaration of Independence, and that when he goes abroad, people in other countries tell him how much they want the American dream and what the idea of working hard and building a life means to them.
"Creating America wasn’t easy, and the fulfillment of our founding documents still demands much. But we make a grave mistake if we think this nation is only for what some call 'heritage Americans,' whose forebears — specifically Anglo and Scots-Irish Protestants — fought in the Revolution or Civil War," wrote Rove. Vance is one of the biggest proponents of this, he noted, saying, “America is not just an idea” but “a particular place, with a particular people.”
Vance is particularly foolish to push these views, said Rove, since he is a Catholic convert and "In the past, such movements routinely declared Catholics unacceptable members of our national family," like the 2.5 million-strong American Protective Association, which called Catholicism "diabolical" and "was particularly strong in Mr. Vance’s home state of Ohio."
"America’s birth didn’t include a new aristocracy based on inherited valor," wrote Rove, noting that tech CEOs, Hollywood stars, and "at least 40 winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine" were born elsewhere and "One in seven American residents is an immigrant."
The remaining six in seven should do well to remember, he concluded, "through no action of our own, we were born here, and — alongside all who made their difficult way to America—enjoy the blessings of what happened in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. Happy Fourth, to every American."
