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Notes -
Ramaswamy's mistake is backing the wrong horse. The Blue tribe has no shortage of meritocratic strivers (albeit, rarely to the degree of the stereotypical Asian immigrant). By contrast, meritocracy/achievement is not a premiere value for blood-and-soil conservatives, who generally prefer loyalty, hierarchy, and - above all - lineage. Some second gen immigrant with the wrong religion telling them they need to hustle harder is never going to fly.
America as an attainable idea is consistent with the founding meta-principles of the country, but is not really compatible with the present American conservative movement, which is dominated by nativists who view Americanness largely as a function of in-born traits rather than demonstrated values.
"Heritage American" is just the latest formulation of the idea of Real America, which goes back quite a ways under one guise or another. It holds that, white, conservative (and usually rural and uneducated) Christians are the true heart of America. To the extent that you deviate from this prototype, the legitimacy of your participation in American society and politics is questioned or outright rejected.
It's not a coincidence that the idea isn't very coherent. It's often invoked by people who trace their ancestry to Catholic immigrants from the mid-19th century, or by people whose heritage ancestors that give them a claim to special status are people who literally repudiated their allegiance to the United States. The point is not to assemble an intellectually consistent basis for who really counts. That would exclude many, if not most, proponents, and in any event they're not really interested in cutting out some Polish American whose ancestors came in the 1880s as long as he votes the right way. It's to create a fuzzy category that legitimizes the aforementioned idea of Real Americans while avoiding any question of values (which are largely anti-American).
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