“Hating One’s Country” vs. “Hating What Is Being Done to It”

Why dissent is not disloyalty and patriotism is not obedience

(Audio version here)

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When so many Americans criticised the rise & social dominance of “woke,” in America, they weren’t saying “I hate America” but “I hate what this is doing to America.” This is because criticising developments one believes to be harmful to one’s country while protecting elements of one’s culture that one believes to be good for it is perfectly compatible with patriotism and, in fact, generally regarded as a duty of it.

Many people who understood this perfectly well now appear to believe that an athlete saying “I’m not a fan of all the things going on right now” and saying he considered himself to be representing ‘all the things I believe are good about America” is, in fact, saying “I hate America.”

This volte-face appears to be entirely because the things Hunter Hess is understood not to be a fan of are actions of the Trump Administration rather than wokeness in universities, left-wing protests or trans activism. The things he believes to be good about America are not those currently being demonstrated by MAGA and the current President. This appears to his detractors to render him fundamentally unpatriotic in a way that public criticism of the previous Biden Administration and manifestations of wokeness was not.

This is an unambiguous conflation of “America” with its current government. It is thoroughly incompatible with the ethos of America and its constitution which strongly and, one could argue primarily, protects the right of citizens to criticise the government.

Many of Hess’ accusers, including Megyn Kelly, are calling for him to be removed from the Olympics and have his career and life ruined for criticism of the government which they now see as synonymous with ‘country.”

This is very concerning behaviour from conservatives of a country which has long prided itself on being a democratic republic. We generally associate this kinds of fear-based censorship with countries like Russia or China, not the United States of America. I think the most chilling statement in support of this was, “Donning the U.S.A. uniform symbolizes collective national identity, not individual caveats.” Can one imagine the Founding Fathers ever saying such a thing?

If it were a British athlete who had indicated that he was not a fan of the Labour government and people being arrested for speech and an uproar arose from the British Left demanding he be removed from the Olympics for anti-British sentiment, I feel pretty sure that MAGA condemning Hess would decry this as evidence that the UK had fallen to totalitarians. They’d have a point.

This state of affairs was brought about by Trump himself misrepresenting Hess’ implied criticism of what his administration was doing and statement that he represents what is good about America as a refusal to represent America. He clearly indicates that not to support him and his administration is not to support America. He further indicates that such views should prevent athletes from even trying to compete in international competition. That this caused thousands of individuals to rush to condemn Hess rather than remind the president that “America” and “Donald Trump” are separate things and Americans who don’t support his administration and its actions can still be patriotic Americans is deeply alarming.

Those who feel torn on whether Hunter Hess was making an unpatriotic anti-American statement (aside from whether or not he should be penalised for doing so) might find value in a thought experiment. Consider his words themselves in two different political contexts. First, read them assuming the “lot going on” that he is “not the biggest fan of” to be actions of the Trump administration: the violent nature of the ICE raids, the threats to invade Greenland etc. Then, read them again as though they refer to elements of the left most commonly criticised: institutional capture by identity-based theories, authoritarian race or gender activism.

If in one context this seems to be a clearly patriotic stance and the other it appears thoroughly unpatriotic even though both of them are critical of aspects of US political culture they feel to be damaging and both support things they believe to be good about America, consider that you might have become biased by partisan politics with regards to what patriotism is. You are not feeling indignant with Hess (or hypothetical conservative Hess) because he is unpatriotic, ashamed of America and dismissive of all the good things about it. You believe he disapproves of the wrong things and is proud of the wrong things. This is a perfectly valid political disagreement and his views can be strongly criticised on their substance. What it is not is a difference in degree of love and loyalty to one’s country. That distinction matters.

People who love their country are always going to believe different things are damaging to it and different things represent the best of it and need to be conserved. Recognition of this is why America established a democratic republic and strong protections for freedom of belief and speech in the first place. It was to enable people with different viewpoints to speak freely so they could co-exist, resolve conflicts among themselves and hold their government accountable to governing with the consent of the governed. It was not so that any president or administration could conflate approval of itself with love of country, declare any criticism of itself anti-American, and assert that any Americans publicly expressing contrary political views should not be allowed to represent America on the world stage.

Patriotism, in the context of America, is not obedience to power, but loyalty to the values that keeps the Land of the Free free.