Is the American Literature Puritanism? Please explain what is going on in this page?

Puritans self-consciously saw themselves as being a community which fulfilled God's commandments, a new Israel, so to speak. This orientation informed New England literature, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, and even Henry Thoreau's prophetic role. A chosen people favored by God. WASPs still think they ought to run things, despite having long ago abandoned their faith. Whatever their current enthusiasm, however distant from Calvinism it may be, they feel entitled to attention.