No roots. Or shallow ones. Not their history. It's similar to why the likes of Nikki Haley will blithely taliban the South of its symbols. They have no interest in it and no respect for it, other than how it can be used for politically acceptable posturing.
Gore Vidal's family goes back on his mother's side, one of the families owning land that became Washington DC.
Norman Podhoretz' parents immigrated to the US.
Pelham - you are a treasure as well as a genius. You have exactly caught the problem: shallow roots vs. deep roots.
I will never, ever forgive what Haley did in SC. Never, ever. She only follows at the UN what Mr. Trump tells her to follow. If she had her own way, God knows what she would say.
My family goes back to before the Civil War - not a long time and they were mostly pretty cowardly, lol, but I treasure how long they were on American earth versus Irish dirt. It makes a difference, doesn’t it?