A review of Huntington's Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity

In the new Boston Review, a review of Samuel Huntington's latest, er, musings.

The end of the Cold War left the United States without a common enemy. Its elites have become liberal multicultural cosmopolitans. 'Overall,' Samuel Huntington tells us, 'American elites are not only less nationalistic but are also more liberal than the American public.' Indeed, only 22 percent of the American public self-identifies as liberal, whereas a whopping 91 percent of leaders of public-interest groups are liberals. True, Huntington’s statistics also show that only 14 percent of American business elites and nine percent of the military elites are liberals, but let’s not split hairs: if you add them all up, “elites” are liberal.

And there is an even more urgent cause for alarm, a more pressing challenge to America’s national identity: the current 'Hispanic' invasion.

. . .

This is because Mexican immigration is different from any other: it is more persistent, more regionally concentrated, less committed to education and more attached to its native culture and values. The net effect of these factors is disturbing: 'In the late twentieth century, developments occurred that, if continued, could change America into a cultural bifurcated Anglo-Hispanic society with two national languages.'

Liberal elitists like Bill Clinton may ask you to believe that the United States cannot break apart into two cultures, that it is and always was a nation of immigrants, a mosaic of cultures. It is no such thing.”