People within the "dissident right" often speak of America as an unusually young nation compared with the supposedly ancient nations of Europe, but that comparison is misleading. The United States is 250 years old as an independent country, but a distinct American identity had already been developing for roughly 150 years before the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, a recognizable American identity was already established that was increasingly distinct from British identity—even though many Americans at that time also still saw themselves as Englishmen.

Meanwhile, many European national identities in their modern political form are actually younger than the American one. Germany did not unify until 1871, and modern German nationalism became a major political force largely in the 19th century. Italy unified in 1861 after centuries in which people primarily belonged politically to states such as Piedmont, Venice, Tuscany, Naples, or the Papal States. Belgium became independent in 1830, while modern Finnish, Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Latvian, and Estonian national movements also developed principally during the 19th century.

Of course, this does not mean Germans, Italians, Greeks, or other European peoples did not exist culturally before then. Many had very old linguistic, religious, regional, or historical identities. But an old people is not necessarily the same thing as a modern national identity. Medieval and early modern Europeans often identified strongly with their dynasty, province, city, kingdom, religion, or local community rather than with the modern idea of a unified sovereign nation of all people sharing a language or ethnicity.

Some European national identities, particularly the English, Portuguese, and to a degree the French, do have strong medieval roots and are clearly older than American identity. But much of modern European nationalism arose between the late 18th and 19th centuries, during the same period in which the United States was already an established republic.

So America is not quite as historically “young” as it is often portrayed. Its formal national existence dates to 1776, its distinct cultural foundations reach back into the early 1600s, and its national identity is at least as old as—and in some cases older than—the modern national identities of a significant number of European countries.

This is critically important to understand when we discuss the future of American nationalism and why it is necessary to preserve and carry forward the American identity into future. Identities cannot be reinvented from scratch, but rather grow and evolve from their existing roots, even if the nation renames itself.