This is from a newly sworn citizen who immigrated legally to the U.S.:
The difference between native-born Americans and naturalized Americans is significant. Native-born Americans will never take the Oath of Allegiance. Sure, most Americans pledge allegiance to the flag in school, but that’s not binding. Many refuse to say it. Ironically, and by design, the refusal to stand for the pledge is a right that America grants all people, not just its citizens.
This distinction sheds light on the privilege of being born in America which, unfortunately, leads many people to take their rights for granted. Worst of all, it leads many young people to hate America groundlessly.
Read all of that story, please.
I’m not sure this belongs on my Travel/Global issues blog but it raises a key point on global issues and immigration – why do so many Americans think it is cool to hate America?
In my Myth series, Parts 1 and 2, I have documented 300 “news” stories about Americans who have moved abroad because, they claim, “America is awful”. Nearly all of the subjects of these stories are highly privileged Americans, have traveled the world, attended elite universities, studied abroad, and benefited from their American wealth -and now exploit low wages and low cost of living in other countries. And then post extensive social media content on Youtube, Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram bashing America while telling us everything elsewhere is so much better.
Until last year, I was a doomer like everyone else, down on America. But seeing this inconsistent nonsense from elitists who benefited immensely from their American privilege – then turn around and bash America, has really gotten to me. This last 4th of July was the first time in my life I flew the U.S. flag.
There is a bizarre societal meme pushed by the influencers and the media that to be American is to be an awful person. Now, the less American you are, the better you are as a person, it seems. This is bizarre, uncalled for and unnecessary.
To get back to the original question – why do so many Americans think it is cool to hate America?
Because the media have found that negativity, hate, and fear sells eyeballs to advertisers. They do not care about the carnage and emotional toll their negativity is having on the country. It’s doomer news day in and day out – there is nothing good in America for them to report on – only negativity, leaving everyone in despair. Their negativity has made everyone so depressed that 1/3d of citizens tell pollsters they want to leave the U.S.
To the media this is progress. But all they are doing is profiting off uncalled for fear and doom while hurting actual people.
For social media influencers, living abroad is their mark of distinction and emphasizes their personal elite-ness – they are better people than the common folkx left sniveling away at their jobs in the U.S., while influencers are beautiful people living in exotic locales where life is better. Influencers don’t understand why everyone isn’t a content creator, oblivious to their own dependency on the rest of the world building the tools and delivering the services that make their content creator lifestyle possible. Without people working in businesses and factories, there would be no Internet, no 4K cameras, no Apple computers to edit their content, no social media platforms – not everyone can work remotely as a writer.
Society requires a huge number of people doing the dirty jobs that make civilized life possible for many of us (hat tip to Mike Rowe). These people are the real heroes – not the social media influencers, not the bash-America-first crowd moving abroad.
Social media influencers would be wise to recognize their privilege (often associated with pretty privilege: Is “pretty privilege” a “thing” on social media platforms? – Social Panic (coldstreams.com)) that lets them do what they do – and stop lording it over everyone else.