Is there a phrase that is more unnecessarily polarizing and asinine than “America: Love it or leave it”? Ever since I first heard it belched out by some doofus cable news commentator as a teen—-yes, I was a teenager during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I’m officially a nonbinary unc now—I’ve wondered if there are similar sentiments in other countries. If someone from Canada complains about some aspect of their country, does a more conservative Canadian stomp over and tell that person to “love it or leave it?” It would be funny if this sort of thing happened in other countries, but my hunch is that the U.S.-—which already has a very high opinion of itself—-is (unfortunately) unique in this regard too. As if I, a citizen, should not actively want this country to do better. This phrase is now such a cliché that it has been printed on hundreds (or possibly thousands) of terrible t-shirts.

I don’t like fireworks, but there’s more to my distaste for the 4th of July than that: “American independence” is built on a myth. So is the whole “greatest country in the world” thing, which feels extra distasteful in 2026 as the Trump administration and its supporters keep trying to bring the U.S. back to a time that never actually existed in the first place (basically, all the worst aspects of the 1950s but with social media, and plenty of AI slop for everyone). Writer Josh Caress, in a recent piece about America’s 250th birthday for Welcome to Hell World, wrote that “There has never been a time in American history when our country was not mythologizing itself to cover atrocities.” The whole essay is amazing and you should read it, but that line has really stuck with me.

One of the things that makes me least proud to be an American is that many of us—-or at least the people in charge politically right now (hi, conservatives!)--tend to believe that violence solves everything. Did Saudi hijackers kill 3,000 Americans in a spectacularly upsetting fashion? Bomb Afghanistan. Upset that Saddam Hussein tried to kill your dad and suspect that he has “weapons of mass destruction”? Bomb Iraq. Support Israel in their misguided quest to exterminate an entire people? Give them money to bomb Gazans. Upset at Iran for…reasons? More bombing should work. The same people who support violence perpetrated by this country as a solution to global problems would probably call me all sorts of names for criticizing American foreign policy, Trump and his conservative cheerleaders, and liberal politicians who are basically centrists/Republicans Lite at this point (but don’t want to admit that). I have difficulty reconciling all of this with the 4th of July, a holiday where we are supposed to celebrate America’s awesomeness.

Criticizing America, its mythology, and its institutions is not the same thing as hating it. I’m not gonna be out here burning a flag because I think that we need single payer healthcare and for the government to provide universal basic income (UBI) and/or housing for its people. Wealthy conservatives are allowed to endlessly complain about how high their taxes are/how hard they worked for their money/how much USAID sucked and how glad they are that it’s gone/whatever Fox News’ pro-billionaire televisual handjob-slash-talking point is today. But when I openly say that I don’t want my taxes going to support a genocide, I keep wondering if some weirdo wearing flag-print board shorts is going to pop out of nowhere and scream “WOKE!” at me while broadcasting the whole interaction on TikTok live.

Back to “love it or leave it”: if I don’t agree with every decision that the people in power make, or I really hate the two-party voting system, or if I think that teaching students about slavery and its legacy is important (to name a few things), where am I supposed to go? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is famously progressive, so this might be one of the only places where I can live and not be afraid of the aforementioned American flag board shorts-wearing TikTokker popping out of nowhere to scream “Love it or leave it, Antifa!” at me.

At least Trump and company’s Great American State Fair seems to be going well! Oh, it’s not? Huh, imagine that.

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