The Heritage of Heritage Americans Is Bigoted Mass Hysteria

Two Goods, Two Murders, Connected Across Centuries

Why are armed goons roaming our streets and murdering our citizens in cold blood? To protect citizens, we are told. From what? From an invasion of foreign landscapers, roofers and restaurant workers, they say. Does any of that make any sense?

It does if you're a self-described "Heritage American." That term is utter bullshit, of course. The very concept is antithetical to America's founding principles and its history as a nation of immigrants. But, you know, there is something about our heritage that these Heritage Americans remind me of: a certain illogical frenzy that gripped a pocket of colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693.

That's right, the Salem Witch Trials. There's a direct line from the hysterical, Puritan twits responsible for the deaths of at least twenty-five people accused of witchcraft to the hysterical, quasi-puritanical twits responsible for the deaths of a to-be-determined number of people accused of either poisoning the blood of real America or providing comfort to the invaders.

Heritage Americans are the philosophical successors to Sarah Gadge and Thomas Gadge and the other witnesses and community members who stoked the mania that led to the deaths of the innocent in Salem.

Consider this nonsense from the Gadges about how Sarah Good, executed for supposedly being a witch on July 19, 1692, supposedly killed a cow.

The deposition of Sarah Gadge the wife of Thomas Gadge aged about 40 years this deponent testifieth and saith that about two years & an halfe agone; Sarah Good Came to her house & would have come into the house, but s'd. Sarah Gadge told her she should not come in for she was afraid she had been with them that had the Smallpox: & with that she fell to mutring & scolding extreamly & soe: told s'd Gadge if she would not let her in she should give her something; & she answered she would not have any thing to doe with her & the next morning after to s'd Deponents best remembrance one of s'd Gadges Cowes Died in A Sudden, terible & Strange, unusuall maner soe that some of the neighbors & said Deponent did think it to be done by witchcraft & farther saith not ------

And Thomas Gadge husband of s'd Sarah: testifieth that he had a Cow soe Died about the time abovementioned & though he & some neighbors opened the Cow yet they Could find no naturall Cause of s'd Cowes Death & farther saith not

Now consider this nonsense from America's preeminent Heritage American JD Vance about how Renee Good, executed for supposedly being a domestic terrorist on January 7, 2025, supposedly endangered an ICE agent.

You can accept that this woman's death is a tragedy while acknowledging it's a tragedy of her own making.

Don't illegally interfere in federal law enforcement operations and try to run over our officers with your car. It's really that simple.

Or how about this from Jesse Watters, another proud Heritage American, who helpfully explains the ways Good had it coming.

The truth is that JD and Jesse are Heritage Americans in the sense that people like them have been with us from the beginning, vilifying the "other," delighting in their persecution. Sarah Good was homeless and likely suffering from mental illness, an easy target as the witch hysteria swept through Salem. Renee Good was another easy target, living a life outside the acceptable bounds of propriety as defined by, you guessed it, JD and Jesse, and murdered while standing up for the beleaguered targets of the military force occupying her city, the immigrants who aren't "real" Americans as defined by, you guessed it again, JD and Jesse.

And so the death of Sarah Good, as the JDs and Jesses of 17th century America told us, and the death of Renee Good, as the JDs and Jesses of 21st century America are telling us now, were regrettable, but understandable and defensible.

JD and Jesse aren't going anywhere. They've been here from the start and will always be with us. But what we know is that the hysterias eventually fade and that the JDs and Jesses of the world are eventually exposed as the villains that they are. 

The question for all of us in this moment is, what heritage are we standing up for, the one that justifies senseless murder, or the one that encourages us to live up to the ideals of our founding generation?