I Actually Love America

Originally posted on Facebook, July 4, 2023.

I love America!

Somehow Republicans are always claiming to be the patriotic ones, but this always confused me. Republicans certainly don’t like American cities. They refer to them as shitholes and claim that they’re ravaged by crime and drugs. At the same time, they’re unwilling to pass the kind of police reform, healthcare, and social programs that we would need to fix these problems. They don’t seem to like the rural or suburban Americans either: constantly providing tax loopholes for rich corporations at the expense of the middle and lower classes.

So then maybe it’s the land itself that Republicans love? Well that can’t be true either considering how vehemently they oppose environmental legislation. They seem content to see national parks and wildlife destroyed as long as their big oil friends continue seeing record profits.

Alright, well maybe it’s the fundamental American ideals then! And yet, we see Republicans against freedom of speech (Colin Kaepernick kneeling, flag burning, etc.), against freedom of assembly (BLM protests, pride parades, etc.), and even against democracy itself with all the election denialism stuff! In fact, Republican leaders like Lindsey Graham and Marjorie Taylor Greene have explicitly spoken out against the separation of church and state.

Well if Republicans really love America, they must like our military, right? Ya know, support our troops and all that jazz? And yet, not a single Republican leader spoke out against Trump cutting funding for the already underfunded veterans programs in this country. People like Chris Christie can speak out against Trump’s personality all they want, but I don’t hear a word from them about his actual legislation.

Republicans claim to love America, but I ACTUALLY love America. Sure, we still have a long ways to go and things that I wish we did better, but we are by far the most diverse country on earth, and we are the strongest democracy to ever exist with the longest living constitution. We put men on the moon, and developed the incredible mRNA vaccine technology in record time in response to covid.

I don’t know why patriotism became a conservative ideal. REAL patriotism seems to be liberal.