2. Americans of English ancestry are a small and dwindling minority, only bolstered if you include the Scots and Scots Irosh who form the bulk of the white population of the South. Most of the rest of us American whites do NOT consider the UK our mother country, and always found the WASPs to be laughable in their insistence that they are a "majority."
Since when? I don't mean the defiant "Since when?" meaning "Sez who?" just "When did this actually happen?" I'm pretty sure that in 1940 plenty of Americans still thought of England as their mother country.
Even now, I don't see anything from French or German or Spanish or Chinese TV having the appeal over here of Downton Abbey and other British television series over here even among people without a drop of English blood. I don't see many people linking to articles in other foreign papers, either.
I do have to admit, though, the general decline of British TV and the fact that they aren't fighting Hitler now tends to make our affinity with Britain weaker than it once was.
Inaccurate. A popular myth, but not true. White population of the South is largely English in origin.
The county of US with highest percentage of Scot-Irish ancestry claims 7.2%.
http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/pct_scots_irish.pdf
I will agree that the Scots-Irish were culturally influential to a wildly disproportionate degree, especially in the South and on the frontier. Probably because their culture was peculiarly suited to a frontier warrior lifestyle.