Why do white Americans think they have no culture?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Not to disagree strongly with any of the above but I can't help but think about this classic 2004-era meme:



Context here was that in the wake of the Iraq War, conservatives took a position as hyper-patriotic and reflexively liberals took a very muted and often self-flagellating stance on patriotism and national identity.

This is not a long-history view, but in recent decades as the right has adopted a more (ethno-)nationalist stance, the left has moved towards a more cosmopolitan stance that erases (or negatively distorts) American culture in a way that

(1) creates contrast with nationalist conservatives
(2) glorifies other nations (in the early 00s it was Europe and Canada, now it's generally cosmopolitan global cities) as the only "truly" cultured places
(3) caters to the changing demography of the party that has been increasingly non-white and college educated
(4) generally tracks a growing strain of liberalism that sees much of US history and contemporary America as a series of struggles and inequities that should not be enshrined, and associates contemporary American "culture" with these struggles
(5) due to demography is over-represented in many institutions, especially elite institutions outside of the corporate world

The result is a view that white American culture either does not exist, or it should not exist.