On American Patriotism, by a Based Canuck

a guest post by one of my real-life friends

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Adam Burgoyne is one of my real-life friends. He wrote this touching account of how his view of American patriotism and culture has evolved over the years, culminating with his take on our recent election. I hope you enjoy it. Comments open for everyone, so Adam can respond.

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I’d like to put into words just how much the election results in the United States mean to me even though I’m not an American. I don't cry much, but I found, to my own surprise, that I was choking up on Tuesday night as the returns rolled in.

I was born and raised in Canada, where we don’t engage in the level of overt and unabashed patriotism of our southern neighbours. In fact, while most people spoke warmly of Americans themselves, their displays of patriotism were seen to be a bit too much, too over-the-top. Garish.

“Sure, we get being proud of your country but maybe just turn it down a notch, eh?”

As a product of this upbringing the pomp and bombast never quite resonated with me. I would say it was corny (and honestly, I still think that can be true at times). It also can’t be overlooked that many Canadians really enjoy imagining themselves as quite similar to Americans, except just a bit more humble and polite. Oh, and with fewer guns. There is a streak of smugness and superiority in there for some, too, though they generally don’t say so in polite company. 

This remained my view by default for years; it was one of the many things I just accepted without really questioning it.

I was just coming of age when the Twin Towers were destroyed in the terror attacks on September 11^th, 2001, and vividly remember both that day and the years of fallout that resulted. My high school was closed, and the gym was converted into an emergency shelter for Americans whose flights were diverted. The whole community stepped up to donate food and supplies. That’s what good neighbours do.

The miasma of shock and disbelief that permeated those first few days quickly gave way to a resurgence of the American spirit. They showed the entire world that, while they were deeply impacted and in mourning, they were not beaten. The entire country rallied, political divisions were sidelined, and people came together to honour the fallen. 

This was the first time I began to understand the positive impact of such a strong national identity. The sense of kinship was so strong I felt it myself, even though at that time I’d never set foot across the border.

This wasn’t a feeling that lasted long, unfortunately. The dual quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan soon revealed the ugly side of patriotism. Those in power manipulated good and well-meaning people onto a dark path using their sense of duty and loyalty to their country. While nearly everyone now agrees these wars were both abysmal failures, criticisms at the time were often met with sharp accusations. “That’s unpatriotic! Why do you hate America?” I cannot express how much I loathed this rhetorical weapon, specifically its bastardization of what it means to be patriotic.

The morass of these wars was likely a large contributor to Barack Obama’s meteoric rise to the presidency in 2008. Not only did he explicitly run on change, but at that time his message was one of unity, shared American values and, yes, greatness. He successfully struck a chord that dialed back the weaponized patriotism and reminded the world that a wholesome version of the proud American existed. It was no coincidence that his oratory style evoked memories of Martin Luther King, at once tapping into a well of national pride and issuing a call to action to preserve it. Critics can (and did) scoff at “Hope & Change,” but no one can deny the effectiveness of that campaign.

Many voters felt that Obama would usher in a post-racial America and finally let the ghosts of its troubled past to rest, as well as ending the misguided war efforts. I admit, I was one of these people—young, full of idealism, and hopelessly naïve. By the time Obama won his re-election in 2012, however, it was apparent that this was not on the menu. 

It was in fact quite the opposite. 

The war in Afghanistan was still hot and would drag on for nearly another decade, new conflicts arose in Syria and Libya, and the message from on high shifted from an inspirational tone to a scolding one.

A series of tragedies beginning with the death of Trayvon Martin were blown up by media attention, often misrepresenting or outright lying about the facts, ushered in the Great Awokening. Gone was any sense of national unity, pride or patriotism. America had nothing to be proud of, you see. We were told that not only were the sins of the past not forgotten, but they were also still being committed in the present day. The message put forth by activist groups like Black Lives Matter were echoed by the mainstream media and even the Obama administration. Straight white men were branded oppressors, misogynists, and racists. 

Republicans weren’t just wrong, they were evil.

This period directly coincided with the start of my own shift away from the left. The reactions from friends, family and in online communities to my refusal to agree with blanket statements demonising men and dividing people into racial hierarchies increasingly left me disillusioned. And politically adrift.

I grew up during a time when the ideal was to never judge people by their race, and my sense of fairness told me this must apply equally in all directions; else it’s simply enacting revenge rather than righting past wrongs.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 took me by surprise. To be honest, I was never a fan of his. So-called “reality” TV was kryptonite to my taste—I refused to watch any of it since the inception of the format. He was a poor public speaker in my estimation, at least in terms of what I felt one should expect from the dignified offices of public service. Brash, arrogant and just buffoonish in general. A bit of a cartoon character. My dislike for him was mild, though, so I found it immediately interesting when the entire entertainment industry and the press turned on him with such aggression. I, like many others, still fully expected Hillary Clinton to win.

I didn’t understand then how much the corporate press lies and willfully misleads its viewers. “Talking heads”—pundits who only seemed interested in shouting over each other—were banned in my house, but I still had the impression that while the opinion-spewers were given a longer leash, the news desks were dealing in facts, at least enough of the time that they were still trustworthy. If this Cronkite-esque idealism was still alive before the 2016 election, it died immediately thereafter.

The media were quite clearly furious that their influence had not been enough to crown Clinton, and dedicated their entire being to undermining Trump. Hashtag RESIST. No cesspit was too rank for them to dredge for whatever they could throw at him. Any pre-existing norms were wantonly violated, ostensibly to hinder the president they deemed dangerous due to his willingness to violate norms.

Wokeness, now the pseudo-religion of the left, was viewed as antithetical to Trump’s message and therefore dialled up to maximum. Overt hatred of anything and everything patriotic was the name of the game on the left, as was neatly filing any dissenters and opponents into a myriad of accusatory slurs: racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, bigot. This cancerous ideology metastasized to every other nation in the West, cemented in the echelons of the elite.

My demoralisation spiked with the advent of COVID-19, the death of George Floyd and ensuing “Summer of Love,” and the hotly-contested elections of 2020. The media were determined to re-assert their power and relegate Trump to the list of one-term presidents. Lockdowns and their economic fallout weakened the administration’s selling points to its base, and the propaganda machine became ever more vicious and brazen. I had stopped giving any credence to the press—or the presstitutes, as I now call them—by default. Vanishingly few journalists were still producing good and rigorous work.

The “most fair and secure election ever,” rife with states that had made sweeping changes to the voting process at the 11^th hour due to pandemic restrictions, propelled Joe Biden to the White House. Voicing any concern about the integrity of any of this process or the wild swings that happened overnight, you were an election denier. Legal action was denied on the (very flimsy) technicality of standing, with no relation to the quality of evidence, yet this was reported by the media as if any concerns had been evaluated and rejected by the judiciary.

It seemed like the America of my youth was slowly crumbling before my eyes. All of the institutions were spewing obviously ridiculous rhetoric steeped in cultish language. Historical figures were being posthumously subjected to struggle sessions for committing crimes that did not exist—that could not have been conceived of by even the most imaginative—while they were alive. We were told to trust The Science™ when even a person of middling intelligence could easily deduce the conclusions being put forth were hogwash.

“The US is more racist now than it’s ever been! Men can get pregnant! Cloth masks stop a virus and the vaccine will stop transmission, but also vaccines were never meant to prevent transmission! The virus can’t get you when you’re sitting down and can only float for six feet!” 

It was a never-ending deluge of absolute insanity, and if you were smart enough to notice, you were wise enough to keep your inconvenient questions to yourself.

Any form of patriotism was now verboten in popular culture, even to the level of flying an American flag. Only shame and self-flagellation were now permitted. Atonement and redemption were off the table; once you were cancelled, you were exiled from polite society unless you were already of significant enough wealth to weather the storm and attempt a comeback later.

The 2024 elections were truly a referendum on this cultural mindset. The two camps were entrenched, fighting bitterly and with every means possible. Through all the memes, viral clips and soundbites there was a striking difference between the tone and message of the rival factions. 

Team Blue promised… Well, it depends on which state you were in, which identity faction you belonged to, and, seemingly, the weather. “Free Palestine” in Michigan and “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself” in Pennsylvania. “We’ll never go back,” but we also “can’t think of anything” we’d have done differently in the last four years. It was an incoherent soup of messages, none of which resonated with people except those who already loathed tRump and his MAGAts enough that they’d have happily voted for Pol Pot if it meant denying The Donald a second term. 

Team Red promised a resurgence of the American worker (and thus their purchasing power), securing the southern border, an extensive review of the size and scope of the federal government and its hundreds of agencies, and a hopeful return to the common sense of the silent majority. JD Vance, initially met with a wave of skepticism and outright condemnation, proved himself to be a rhetorical weapon of nuclear proportions, delivering Trump’s message in a far more eloquent way than the Orange Man himself is capable of and skewering multiple media attempts to spin false narratives.

Trump’s social media and campaign ads were razor-sharp this cycle, taking advantage of every gaffe, misstep and weakness of the Harris/Walz campaign with cat-like reflexes, and culminating in the release of this ad by Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s running mate. In my view, this was the apogee of the entire campaign. It successfully tapped into the same vein of proud patriotism that Barack Obama had once masterfully delivered in 2008 (oh, how the mighty have fallen). The message was so positive and aspirational that my eyes welled up the first time I saw it. 

“Oh my God, I missed this.”

I missed the America that was aspirational, that said you could do anything if you put your heart and soul into it. 

I missed the America that said we’re all the same race—the human race. 

I missed the America that said “I love you, even if we disagree.” 

I missed the America that said despite the sins and errors in our history we’re still proud of who we are and what we’ve overcome. 

I missed the America that prized competency over identity. 

I missed the America that inspired victory instead of victimhood.

Most of the Canadians I know who are absolutely shocked and dismayed about Trump’s victory knew very little about the actual goings-on of the campaigns, only skimming headlines and hearing snippets from friends about how he’d become a Nazi dictator. Buried ledes were missed, misrepresentations swallowed whole. Unlike in the United States, there exists no major rival to the left-wing commentariat’s diktats in media, and independent media is seen by a much larger portion of our population as an inherently illegitimate garden of conspiracy theories. Given the neutering of online news media via Facebook and other social media platforms, courtesy of the Trudeau government, it’s no surprise that many were blindsided by this result.

I welcome it wholeheartedly, and hope it has ripple effects in Canada and worldwide. We need a return to moderated discussion instead of cancellation, to free speech instead of censorship, and to common sense instead of insanity. The whole world is in desperate need of such a realignment. Thanks to the paradigm shift that occurred on November 5th, 2024, I believe it might actually be possible for the first time in a long while, but it’s only possible if the silent majority speaks up. 

And so I did.

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