# I am finding it hard to be patriotic these days **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [October 27, 2025, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319 "2025-10-27T03:03:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/21 "2025-11-01T08:13:37Z")
Back to Orwell: _By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality._ ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/22 "2025-11-01T13:34:46Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > We’ve seen what happens to societies where people _aren’t_ patriotic; they turn into corrupt failed states. “Patriotism is the Last Refuge of the Scoundrel” I’m Zimbabwean and South African and British. (I guess mutiple citizenship is unusual in the States) While my love for Zimbabwe is strong, I am not a patriot. I like South Africa, and I am just a Brit without caring too much. So, from my limited sample we have a failed state, a working third world state, a leading first world state. Towards which country should I be patriotic? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/23 "2025-11-01T15:00:58Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > Towards which country should I be patriotic? Whichever one you are living in, assuming your goal isn’t to harm it. The point of patriotism is encouraging people to not destroy the place they live. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/24 "2025-11-01T15:58:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Whichever one you are living in This is ridiculous. I live in South Africa, but consider myself Zimbabwean. Why should I be loyal to a country into which I managed to weasel my way? If South Africa declared war, I’d not be a volunteer, I would be a conscientious objector, the same way I would if Zimbabwe or the United Kingdom did. I live in RSA. Why does that take precedence? What do you suggest if Zimbabwe declared war on South Africa? What if Britain joined the conflict? Your premise is exceptionally limited in scope - perhaps because you have never travelled. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/26 "2025-11-01T18:32:28Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Since Vietnam. If not sooner. I agree. This era reminds me forcefully of the Nixon era, in which one side insisted that everybody had to make a public show of patriotism, which meant in practice endorsing Nixon and the war, flying the flag, and inflicting pain on your enemies, and the other side saying that they loved the country when it lived up to its ideals but couldn’t feel patriotic, let alone want to publicly display it, when the country was turning authoritarian and hateful. Simply by not being publicly patriotic in the “correct” ways, they therefore were demonstrating their hate for America. “Love it or leave it.” Our side gets to define “love.” And it’s not any of that woke hippie shit about loving your neighbor. The right would have so loved the term “woke” back then. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/27 "2025-11-01T18:37:58Z")
I’m 68 as of last week. The only time I felt the stirrings of patriotism was when I was in US Navy boot camp in the early 1980s singing songs in the Bluejacket Choir. Right now I am angry, embarrassed and frustrated. But I live here and maintain my obligations so I have a place to rest my head. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/29 "2025-11-02T01:57:10Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > This is ridiculous. I live in South Africa, but consider myself Zimbabwean. Why should I be loyal to a country into which I managed to weasel my way? Because it’s unethical and in the long run usually self destructive to ruin the place you are living in. Especially if you aren’t extremely wealthy or powerful. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/30 "2025-11-02T02:07:50Z")
I think there is a bit of a gap between “affectatiously patriotic” and “ruining the place you live in for fun and profit”. (Note, one can do plenty of the latter while waving as many flags as you want.) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/31 "2025-11-02T02:28:23Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I think there is a bit of a gap between “affectatiously patriotic” and “ruining the place you live in for fun and profit”. If you don’t care about a place, you have no incentive not to. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/32 "2025-11-02T06:56:40Z")
I have zero emotional attachment to my car. If it were to explode and burn in the parking lot tomorrow, I would be irritated about the disruption to my life and the financial hit I would take replacing the vehicle based on whatever partial payment I would receive from the insurance company, but I would feel no particular emotional loss. It is merely the mechanical conveyance which serves to transport me and my cargo from one place to another. Yet it would be foolish in the extreme to smash my car into a wall or drive it off a cliff while I myself am inside it. Your argument is arrant nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Eric1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3bc359/32.png) [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/33 "2025-11-02T10:15:37Z")
No one in my family has been patriotic so it’s hard to have that motivation. Neither my parents, grandparents or others in lineage ever expressed patriotism for their country. I’ve talked with most of them and read their letters home from military encampments. They were at best acculturated to support the other personnel and try not to become a casualty. None of them were very much interested in serving their country. I’m more into civic responsibility to the greater extent: send in personal info to Selective Service and talk to recruiters (at 18 yrs old), vote in elections, follow most laws, listen to and read government announcements. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/34 "2025-11-02T10:32:47Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it’s unethical and in the long run usually self destructive to ruin the place you are living in. It is unethical for me to leave a country where racism drove me out? Robert Mugabe decided my birth-right citizenship was null and void. I am fortunate in that I obtained other citizenship. But I am first and foremost Zimbabwean, even if I can’t renew my passport. My friends are mostly Zimbabwean, while my chiShona is rusty, I can still speak to my country people. (Also the pedant in me wishes to correct: “in which you are living”.) ---
**Author:** ![Eric1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3bc359/32.png) [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/35 "2025-11-02T11:04:45Z")
@scudsucker , that is stirring about your citizenship. Imean it’s educational for me because I’ve never had my citizenship taken away. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/36 "2025-11-02T11:14:04Z")
As we say, “zvakapressa” - a neoligsm for “it is pressing”, primarily in regard to government authority pushing down on the people - but usually said with self-aware irony. Zimbabwean humour is probably second only to Poland in self depreciation. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/37 "2025-11-02T12:11:01Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > I felt it was more propaganda when some said that liberals hated this country. Wanting to make it better is the definition of patriotism if you ask me. It’s easy to recognize the many faults this country had in the past not to say I hated this place, but to look at the courage of people who did what they could to make things better. This is exactly right imo. Patriotism is wanting your country to be the best it can be. If you think it’s already great and there’s nothing more to do, that’s nationalism. If you think your country is better than most others, that’s chauvinism. If you think your country is the best except for a big part of the people in it, that’s fascism. Trumpism is a mix of nationalism, chauvinism, and fascism. There’s no patriotism about it at all. Here’s an article on the topic that has stuck with me: > **[In defense of a reasonable patriotism | Brookings](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/in-defense-of-a-reasonable-patriotism/)** > > Bill Galston defines and defends the notion of “reasonable patriotism,” and argues that separate and distinct political communities are the only sites in which decent and—especially—democratic politics can be enacted. Instructive quote: > [@](#): > > We can see patriotism as a sentiment that needs principled regulation. Carl Schurz, who left Germany for the United States after the failed 1848 revolution, became a Union general during the Civil War and then a U.S. senator. Attacked on the Senate floor as too willing to criticize his adopted country, Schurz replied, “My country, right or wrong: if right, to be kept right; if wrong, to be set right.” This is the voice of the reasonable patriot. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/38 "2025-11-02T13:51:16Z")
I remember a slogan from around the Vietnam era, when some people had bumper stickers saying “my country, right or wrong”: “My country: right the wrongs.” ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2025, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/39 "2025-12-02T02:49:27Z")
On one hand, patriotism is kind of silly. You should be proud of the geographic location where your mother pushed you out of her? I want to make the US as good a place as possible for my descendants, so I want to be proud of it. I was proud that we as a nation elected an intelligent minority person and thought that perhaps we’ve closed the book on racism, only to see him replaced by a racist xenophobe. Maybe if we can throw MAGA out of power the US will be something to be proud of, but we are becoming a pariah due to one person’s sociopathy. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2025, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/40 "2025-12-02T08:01:17Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > On one hand, patriotism is kind of silly > [@Samuel Johnson](#): > > Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel I love my three countries, Zimbabwe, South Africa and the UK, but I am not patriotic. If I was I would either have stayed in Zim, or moved to the UK. Instead I moved to South Africa. In each case, should those countries ever get involved with a war, my love for them would remain but patriotism would depart very quickly. As the war-time poet Wifred Owen put it, in a very depressing poem: > **[Dulce et Decorum est](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est)** > > Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, > Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, > Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, > And towards our distant rest began to trudge. > Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, > But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; > Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots > Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. > > Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling, > Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, > But someone still ... (Latin translation of the last line: a sweet and fitting thing to die for your country) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2025, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/41 "2025-12-02T12:42:33Z")
> [@Samuel Johnson](#): > > Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel I seem to recall that in Johnson’s day patriotism meant something slightly different - more like Thomas Paine/“people and country” as opposed to the “King and Church” established order. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2025, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319/42 "2025-12-02T17:11:16Z")
Still does, to a lot of people. Mine, at any rate, is to place, people, and ideals. Certainly not to any specific administration. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-finding-it-hard-to-be-patriotic-these-days/1024319.md?page=1)