Yet decades of hate coming from inside the house has created a scenario where Americans think first of the bad things and only begrudgingly offer accolades for our strengths. The hate comes through media, entertainment, academia, even—or most especially—our nation’s leaders, who seem to hate the nation and our countrymen. It's disturbing, perturbing, to be constantly confronted with the deluded idea that patriotism is racist, or transphobic, or bigoted in some new stupid way. A few years ago, The New York Times, that paper of record, put out a video saying that "The myth of America as the greatest nation on earth is at best outdated and at worst, wildly inaccurate. If you look at data, the U.S. is really just O.K."
I said it then, and I'll say it again, we're more than okay. We're the best nation on earth, we have the best people on earth, I love the country, I love Americans, and more than anything I want us to love us. We are not deserving of the heaps of hate and vitriol. We are not racist and horrible. We are not a flyover nation. Any voice in media that talks down to us does not deserve a place in the conversation.
When I told my mom in 2019 that I was writing this article because America is awesome despite all our multifarious faults, she said definitively and with authority "America is NOT awesome!" Her eyes flashed. We don't agree on much. Or at least we didn't then. Now, she has taken a little more time to consider that what I have to say might not be backward just because I have eschewed the elitist coastal perspectives with which I was raised. She's toned down on MSNBC and CNN and has begun reading the news and opinions with a more open mind.
One July 4th when I was a kid, my whole town gathered for a bonfire in the public fields out back of Sylvester Elementary and burned an effigy of Muammar Gaddafi. Everyone cheered when the hay stuffed figure succumbed to the flames. Sometimes we sat on the curb and waved little flags while wearing cut offs and watched old men drive old cars through the center of town. We called this a parade. We all knew who our enemies were. We were unified in having the same enemies. Even more, we knew our enemies were not each other.
Another July 4th I went back to see my step-mother and her family, long since having moved away, and smoked pot with my ex step cousin and we thought no one could tell but everyone could tell. We tried not to blow our fingers off lighting up fireworks bought at the corner store. We had to scatter up the beach when one rocket went sideways, then we busted our sides laughing because we were still alive, all our limbs intact. Then we went swimming off the Massachusetts coast in our clothes, because neither of us had brought swimsuits.
Fourth of July in the mid-2000's was all about going to a friend's family's lake house. The house was called Red House, and we got blitzed for days and made elaborate meals. We swam and kayaked in the lake, we played cards until all hours, and presented our talents in impromptu variety shows on the porch. We mostly avoided Lyme Disease, but ended the multi-day shindig covered in mosquito bites. None of us cared much about politics. I still feel so much love for these old friends, most of whom I haven't talked to in at least over a year.
In 2019, I spent the 4th with my son, and family, lighting sparklers on the New Jersey shore, playing in the warming but glorious Atlantic, making homemade frozen confections we call whipperdoodles, and watching fireflies blip and blink in the scrubby pines of the dunes. This year, in 2024, I'm spending my time watching the country fight itself, seeing how much the leftists really, truly hate the rest of us, and hoping against hope that the country doesn't fracture, that we all remember what makes us unified as Americans.
We are big, loud, crass, independent, stubborn, pig-headed. We are genius, innovative, explorers, we wear matching t-shirts on vacation. We believe in a future where everyone has a shot if they work hard. We believe in family, in keeping to ourselves, in keeping government out of our lives. Or at least we used to. As so many of us have said too many times to count, we used to be a real country. I'd like us to be again.
The story of the Constitutional Convention, in that miserable hot summer in Philadelphia, when the delegates had to barricade themselves inside so no one could hear the secrets, captures the American imagination. After casting off the rule of kings, they forged a new kind of government, one based in ideals of fairness instead of hereditary inheritance of power.
Sure, it's not always perfect, as a nation we don't always live up to those ideals. We shoot off fireworks and send a circus of tanks rolling down our streets, we drink beer, say "don't tread on me," and wipe our patriotic tears with old flags that signify an imperfect past. On Independence Day we get drunk, eat too many chicken wings, and a bunch of us blow ourselves up with illegal fireworks. Praise God.
We can't decide who we are as a people because we aren't one people, we are a bunch of different people united behind a belief in natural rights and equality, at least that's the idea. At our best, America believes itself to be the best. We believe our country to be exceptional because we are at our best when we feel that way. We can achieve more when we think we are strong, egalitarian, kind, and powerful, than when we think we suck.
Yeah, there's totally room for improvement, but if we keep going with this narrative that we suck, why would we even think there's any reason to keep working to make it better? And it turns out we don't suck half as much as we think we do. What makes that plainly obvious is that we are worse off now than we were four years ago, which means all that b.s. about how we weren't living up to our ideals? We were closer then than we are now.
The media apparatus and their partisan political hacks in comms offices are like scolding mothers who see only their childrens flaws. They don't even say "hey America, you're looking pretty good, that's a great haircut, and it's terrific that you got the braces off, I'd like to see you doing better in math and healthcare, but overall, I think you're on the right track." No, these America-haters are more like my hyper-critical grandmother, who used to say "honey, I just want you to know you don't look as good as you think you do." Once she even said "oh your hair looks good, but what happened to your face?"
Okay, sure, we know we are not living up to our ideals in all areas. There's been some tough stuff lately, and we've got a sundowning old man for a president. We do not look our best. We American masochists hate ourselves more than the rest of the world does, but it's not because we suck, it's because we know what we are capable of. We know we are not living up to our potential, and we desperately want to. But the goals we set for ourselves are not those laid out by the leftists who lash us on climate, diversity, and whatever other nonsense they can come up with. Instead, we have a new goal of actually honoring the goodness in our nation, in western civilization, recognizing what it's brought us, and keeping those fires lit.
That's why, on July 4th, Independence Day, when we can say we chucked out King George, we took a risk, we flew by the seat of our pants with barely a cohesive plan, hardly any money, a little backup from the French, nerves of steel, all full of piss and vinegar, we deserve to get drunk, eat a bunch of barbecue, and light off pyrotechnics even if we blow half our fingers off.
This article was first published in The Post Millennial in July 2019. It is reprinted here with revisions.
