David Boaz of the The Cato Institute observes that Barack Obama is Not Just the First African-American President:
But his achievement is even more striking than "first African-American president." There are tens of millions of white Americans who are part of ethnic groups that have never produced a president. The fact is, all 42 of our presidents have been of British, Irish, or Germanic descent. We've never had a president of southern or eastern European ancestry. Despite the millions of Americans who came to the New World from France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Scandinavia, Russia, and other parts of Europe-not to mention Asia and the Arab world and Latin America-we've never had a president who traced his ancestry to those parts of the world. Indeed, it's often been said that "we've never had a president whose name ended in a vowel" (except for a silent "e" such as Coolidge, and with the exception of Kennedy), which is another way of saying "not of southern or eastern European heritage").
This makes sense in a First-Past-The-Post system; our nation has been about 1/4 Roman Catholic for nearly a century, and yet we've only had one Roman Catholic president, so it isn't just ethnicity where the majority reigns supreme. Not so much among vice presidents, where Charles Curtis was part Native American and Spiro Agnew was half Greek. Nevertheless, we've never had a Roman Catholic vice president, and now we do in Joe Biden.
- Log in to post comments
"The fact is, all 42 of our presidents have been of British, Irish, or Germanic descent. We've never had a president of southern or eastern European ancestry."
Is this true or is it simply the claimed ancestry of the individuals involved? Practically every President who visits Ireland for instance manages to find some Irish ancestor and therefore seemingly has Irish roots in a rather tenuous fashion. If that is all that's required I'm pretty sure that, given the immigration pattern of the US, other direct ancestors of different origins could be found for most if not all past Presidents.
sigmund, the "one drop" rule only applies to african ancestry in the USA. so yeah, i'm sure that there is french ancestry, likely huguenot, among many "old stock" (pre-1776) americans who consider themselves anglo.
Obama's mother's family name is "Dunham," which implies he is of English stock as well.
Also, van Buren, who grew up speaking Dutch, is of English stock?
dan, no offense, but if you want to take a snarky tone, please read provided links to make sure that david boaz is not a retard* (though to be fair, the germanic part is easy to miss, as opposed to german). so david said:
"There have been no presidents of southern and eastern European descent; and none of Jewish, African, Latino, Asian, or Indian descent." We've had 37 presidents of British (English, Scottish, or Welsh) or Irish descent; three of Dutch descent (Van Buren and the two Roosevelts); and two of Swiss/German descent (Hoover and Eisenhower). Of course, these categories usually refer to the president's paternal line; Reagan, for instance, was Irish on his father's side but not on his mother's. But that doesn't change the overall picture.
which explains why he said germanic instead of german. but you had your response all ready to go i'm sure....
* david is not so dull that he wouldn't realize that roosevelt is obviously a name which is neither anglo-celtic or german.
How about we dig them up and run a SNP chip on some extracted DNA (if we can get a full genomic sequence from a neanderthal then surely a SNP analysis on a collection of presidential bones wouldnt be out of the question).
Its a half serious point that would be very useful in an educational context.
Indeed, it's often been said that "we've never had a president whose name ended in a vowel" (except for a silent "e" such as Coolidge, and with the exception of Kennedy)
What about James Monroe?
Razib,
Gotcha on "Germanic."
The other not-quite-first, but still unique thing is when was the last time we had a president where at least one parent wasn't a US citizen (i.e. a 1st generation immigrant)?
It hasn't been mentioned much because he was raised by US citizens rather than his father, but it's still pretty amazing.
I agree with your "Black Swan" metaphor, an obvious reference to Mr. Taleb's writings. Simply amazing how a mediocre guy seemingly comes out of nowhere, delivers one decent speech at the Democratic convention 4 years ago, and all of a sudden becomes president. Large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Black Swan event indeed.
Among major party candidates, you had Kerry (half-Jewish, Catholic from the Jewish side), Dukakis (Greek), Goldwater (half-Jewish), Smith (Irish Catholic), and several Catholic Vice Presidential candidates, Miller (64, Irish-German), Muskie (68, Polish), Shriver (72, Irish-German), Ferraro (84, Italian).
Obama's a swan in another respect, of being a completely untypical African-American (as is Colin Powell, the only other plausible Black president, the son of Jamaican immigrants).