Thoughts on our 250th, & the Gap Between the Left’s & Right’s Views of America (posted 7/6/26)

I hope you all had a happy Independence Day! 

I had a good one.  Gainesville does fireworks on the July third on UF’s campus, and my wife and I walked over and watched them.  On the Fourth we went to see the new Young Washington movie, which was really good, and a heartening experience.  There were multiple showings of it on multiple screens throughout the day, and while some of the earlier ones were full, our theatre was about half full. 

Watching it felt like a bit of a throwback.  We seldom go to the movies anymore, for the most old-guy, “get off my lawn” reason: Hollywood hasn’t made much worth watching in recent years.  (I’m too old for superhero movies, and I get the clear impression that most actors hate me and everything I stand for, so…) But this movie was well-made and patriotic, and covered ground that I’d mostly forgotten from school (i.e. Washington’s early years and fighting in the French and Indian War).

There was some chatting in the theatre before the movie got started, but it was actually pleasant.  Everybody was in a good mood, and love of our country came up in several conversations I overheard.  There was actually applause at the end of the film!  The very nice guy who sat next to me quietly said, “Amen,” when Kelsey Grammer said a few patriotic words after the movie ended and before the lights came up. 

I got a few compliments on the new t-shirt I was wearing, too.  It has an illustration of Washington wearing sunglasses, and says, “It’s only Treason if you Lose.”  (I’m starting a new tradition of wearing that one every Independence Day.)

Overall, it was a nice reminder of all the decent people out there, which you can lose sight of if you spend too much time in political arguments online, or watching our degraded legacy media.

Which brings me to my subject today.  Over the last several years, I’ve found myself getting more angry at the left, and more worried about the path our country is on, in large part because of the extent to which so many of our young people have been indoctrinated into hostility toward America by the elite left in our colleges, media, and politics. 

And I’d like to try to squelch that anger, and turn away from it.  Consider it a New Year’s resolution as we begin our second quarter-millenium as a nation.

But I know that it’s going to take some serious effort on my part.  Because the gulf between the right’s view of this country and the left’s view has never seemed larger, or more ominous.  

I know that there are plenty of bad actors on the right, and plenty in the elite right who are happy to exploit the base’s patriotism, resorting to performative jingoism for their own advantage.  But I think the vast majority of everyday conservatives are like the people in the theatre with us on the Fourth.  They love America, and are grateful for the Founders who got it started, and the military who have protected it, and the American people who have kept it going.

I think that same attitude would largely have been true of everyday Democrats when I was a kid, and before.  And I think it’s still true of many of them today, including the blue-collar people I grew up with, and many of the academics I worked with, and some of my friends and family members who would never cancel me just because we disagree about politics.

But I can’t deny the evidence of how far left the Dems have gone, and how many of them are now openly disdainful of the country.  There was always some of that on the left, but now much of the mainstream left has soured on America, before we even get to the depressingly large swing toward actual socialism under the Democrat banner.

Part of this is clearly due to TDS.  Trump is a unique character, and there’s no denying that his flaws are as prominent as his virtues.  He is often a jackass, and he says many offensive things.  Most of us on the right know that; he makes us face-palm a lot too. 

So I’d love to think that that’s most or even all of what the left hates about America, and about us.

But I can’t.  Because I’ve seen them froth about Reagan, and then about W Bush.  (They were calling him “Bushitler” 16 years before Trump appeared on the scene.)  I’ve seen them demonize milquetoast half-Dem RINOs like McCain and Romney.  And that’s before they cheered and gloated over Charlie Kirk’s murder.

The reactions of the elite Left toward the 250^th Independence Day has been instructive.  With a dishearteningly small number of exceptions, the responses have ranged from vile, vulgar and hate-filled rants, to politicians’ dyspeptic statements, to half-hearted, “two-cheers” kinds of messages.

The former group includes Project 1619-style accusations that we were founded purely to carry out slavery, and we haven’t gotten any better since then.  Consider socialist Democrat Chris Rabb, a PA House candidate who just won a primary.  He used the 4^th to denounce the Declaration of Independence as a “lofty screed” that “notoriously” and “purposefully erased indigenous and black peoples.”  Or long-term GA Democrat Hank Johnson, who called the USA “the world’s number one bully” and “the Great Satan.”

The middle group of sour griping is well represented by Mamdani’s creepy hostage-video-looking screed on the eve of the Fourth lamenting all of the hungry American children, the monopolies dominating every industry, oligarchs buying elections (not Soros or the majority of billionaires who supported the Dems – they’re the good oligarchs), and “masked agents terrorizing our streets.” 

If by “terrorizing our streets” you mean “enforcing our laws.” 

The least bad/negative of the third group is typified by Jessica Tarlov’s mostly positive tweet: “Happy Independence Day!  For all her faults, no better nation and so lucky to be born an American….”

That’s a compliment sandwich, starting with good wishes and ending with a statement of gratitude.  But in the middle – because she can’t help it – there has to be an acknowledgement of our fault and flaws, even on our 250^th birthday.   

That is so tired!  We all get it: no nation or group of people is perfect.  Anyone who has lived on earth for more than three or four years knows that.  You don’t have to keep saying it, because it insults everyone’s intelligence.

And before one of my lefty friends can say that I’m making too much of it, or that I’m too sensitive to a tiny, insignificant slight, consider this analogy, which I’ve heard before, and said before: How would it sound if you talked about your spouse the way many/most lefties talk about America?

It’s become a cliché for many leftists to insist they love America, but then recite the list of her flaws (slavery, racism, the Trail of Tears, sexism, penning up Japanese Americans during World War Eleven, etc.).  But picture talking about your spouse that way (focusing on her flaws, comparing her unfavorably to many other women in the world, etc.).

In fact, Tarlov’s post gives us exhibit 4,398,237 to illustrate this point.  Imagine if I gave my smokeshow wife an anniversary card, and penned some thoughts inside that began, “Happy Anniversary!  For all your many faults, there is no better woman, and I’m lucky to be your husband.”

Sure, that last part would be totally true.  But I’d never be able to appreciate her reaction to it, because I’d be writhing on the ground cradling my aching testicles after she drop-kicked me after reading, “For all your faults…” 

And she’d be right to do so.

Because you don’t talk (or think) that way about someone you love!  And you don’t talk (or think) that way about a country you love, either.

Okay, so that doesn’t sound like I’m turning over a new leaf for my new (mid-)year resolution, does it?  But next column I’m going to write about research showing a “happiness gap” between conservatives and liberals, and I’m going to suggest that the lefties’ unhappiness is intertwined with their falsely dark view of America.

And though that doesn’t sound hopeful on the face of it, I think it is.  Because their immiserating view of America isn’t accurate or true, which means that they’re not doomed to hold on to it.  They can lay it down, and recover a patriotic liberalism that would allow them to oppose Trump and Republican policies they disagree with, without demonizing the country, and its past, and half the people currently in it.    

So I’m going to try to turn my anger at them more toward empathy.  Because even though righteous anger exists, and even though I find a lot of catharsis in venting about bad political actors, I also know that anger ultimately hurts those who hold on to it and stoke it within themselves. 

And I don’t want that for myself and us, just like I don’t want that for our political opponents.

Que Mala/Crockett, 2028!

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