Patriotic...?
Patriotism feels different as an adult. And maybe more depressing.
The year is 2004, the summer before the presidential election between George W. Bush and John Kerry. I was in the car with my dad, Sean Hannity (yes, that one) on the radio.
That year, and for a few years after (I believe), his show did man on the street interview, convincing people to believe things that simply weren’t true - like that John Kerry’s running mate was Stu Ped. Many people fell for it, and as a ten year old, it blew my mind that people couldn’t remember who was running with John Kerry - John Edwards. My dad always thought it was funny that I knew more about the election than those who could actually vote, and as a kid who grew up in the midst of 9/11 and the War on Terror, I always felt like it was important to know what was going on. I thought that was patriotic, and in that political climate, after everything that happened since the last election, patriotism was important, especially in suburbia Texas.
As a kid, I had such a different idea of patriotism than I do today. Proud to be an American? Well, to be honest, I’m not so sure.
One of my core strengths as an individual (according to the Clifton Strengths Test from Gallup) is that I am futuristic. It is burned into me that I simply believe that the future has to be better (and lord has that burned me a few times recently).
I think that belief really defines what loose patriotism I might have now. Especially in the last ten years, it feels like the wheels are slowly going backwards. The American Dream dies with inflation, corruption and adulthood. Because part of me doesn’t know - how much of the American Dream has really died in the last decade, or even two decades, since I was a kid in my dad’s car, and how much is it just that I’ve grown up and no longer have that wide-eyed innocence.
Patriotism, at its core, is being proud of one’s country or homeland. But in the last ten years, here in the United States, it’s definitely taken on a new meaning. In fact, if you Google the definition of Patriotism, the Google-forced AI gives you that and the definition of nationalism.
And I will admit, as an adult who lived through 9/11, the Great Recession, a job market that has been band-aided together, a global pandemic and how many wars? A lot has happened in my lifetime, a lot that could have probably been avoided and it’s hard to be patriotic when your government continually sucks.
But, patriotism doesn’t have to just be about Congress, or the White House, or the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, we had the Artemis II go around the moon and back. That all happened because of Americans - everyday people who designed the Orion spacecraft, those who assembled it, and the three Americans who were on the spaceship as it went around the moon? That’s so fucking cool.
A top-tier showcase of how cool the United States can be when she has her shit together. When Americans work together, we can do incredible and wonderful things.
Just overnight, Kelsey Pfendler absolutely crushed a record for the fastest solo row from California to Hawaii. Not only did she smash the women’s solo (which was originally 86 days), she beat the mens’ record by 9 days (she completed it in 43 days and the mens’ record was 52 days).
The older I get, the more I’m realizing that patriotism doesn’t really have to be tied to your government. In fact, nowadays, I don’t think it should be. But regardless of who is in office, Americans are doing cool things every day.
The Americans who did remarkable things in the first 250 years - there are so many names in history that created ripple waves that determine what rights we all have now in 2026. The founding fathers, the suffragists, the abolitionists. America’s history has never been super pretty. It’s messy and ugly and has a dark side.
But throughout all of America’s history, there have been people willing to push back, to demand change and progress, in an attempt to make this land better for more people. And as the United States celebrates her 250th birthday, the futuristic in me hopes that we see more of that in the next 250 years. More kindness, more peaceful rebellion, more support, and more liberty and justice for all.