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Not patriotic enough

There's this idea among conservatives in the U.S. that liberals are unpatriotic and don't love their country. That they're working against America. Now how someone can actually believe that half of the population doesn't care about the country that they live in makes no sense. At least not until you consider the decades of propaganda that has pushed this idea.

The problem is that conservatives are conflating patriotism with nationalism. Patriotism is loving your country enough to not only acknowledge what's great about it (of which there is plenty), but also acknowledging its shortcomings. It requires being critical of things that don't work or are broken. Because unless we are honest about those things, they'll never get fixed.

Nationalism, on the other hand, acts like there are no flaws. Devotion to country is paramount over honesty. It would prefer that you never say anything critical about your country because that would show disloyalty. It's a whitewashing of the ugly parts. This is dangerous. Every authoritarian regime in history has exploited nationalism for their goals. It's patriots, not nationalists, who have the greater chance at stopping tyranny before it starts.

The Republican party has essentially become the Nationalist party of America. They value devotion to country over all. America is only great and to say anything else is treacherous. Politicians are exploiting this. Right wing media is exploiting this. Our former president is exploiting this. This is a danger to our country's future more than anything right now.