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Notes -
Rome rejected its ethnic component well before that. They granted citizenship to non-Roman Latins in 300s BC. Complete citizenship to non Latin Italians in the 80s BC. Julius Caesar was adding foreigners from outside Italy to the senate. Roman Society became civic focused well before the decline of their empire.
I still maintain from the start the US was civic nationalist. For most of its history it believed certain peoples could not be good citizens, but it was never explicitly an ethnos. Ethnic Americanism was an intellectual and often popular trend that has always existed, but never achieved institutional dominance.
Were America to retvrn to the past, it would be to argue certain groups are incapable of exercising the duties of citizenship. That’s an argument within the right wing Overton window of today, even if the racial essentialist parts of the arguments are not.
I would replace this with Civic rather than ethnic. The British identity is civic vs the ethnic English, Scottish, etc. identities. The French identity is famously civic as well, both in the Ancien Regime and post Revolution definitions. China and Russia are empires where the people serve the state rather than vise-versa.
None of that is to say importing Mirpuris or Somalis is a good idea. Prudence regarding immigration is a related, but separate topic as to who can reasonably contribute to the body politic.
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