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Last Updated on February 25, 2025
In July 2018, I wrote about being a liberal patriot. In my post, I included the results of a poll about being patriotic.
The YouGov poll showed how differently members of the political parties view patriotism.
A Values Divide
Have things changed since this poll was taken in late 2017? I was unable to find recent numbers. However, this study from Clearer Thinking provides another view on the divide.
The researchers found our values differ depending on our political affiliation. Conservatives tend to value spirituality, purity, and virtue. On the other end of the spectrum, liberals tend to value diversity, freedom, and nature.
Each side may view the other as unethical specifically because of their non-overlapping values: for instance, liberals may be bothered by the relative lack of interest conservatives have in protecting nature and promoting diversity, and conservatives may be bothered by the relative lack of interest liberals have in religion and living a life of purity.
We must be careful not to interpret this data as a lack of values on either end of the political spectrum. But the difference in emphasis provides an interesting look at our views of patriotism.
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Liberal Patriots Look to the Future
We differ in our patriotic focus. Patriotism is defined at dictionary.com as “devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country.” However, liberal patriots’ love of country tends to focus on becoming an ideal country.
The left inclines to a more redemptive hope in America — the idea that our country has been working from its birth to overcome its unique sins, and that it has made some progress but has much more to make.
On the other hand, Republicans’ love of country tends to focus on upholding what we have been in the past. Also, a sense of ownership regardless of whether we meet the ideal.
A Difference in Political Narrative
Political parties use patriotism in their narratives. But it appears that Republicans are more successful with their beautiful imagery, such as the waving flag.
To improve society, liberal patriots believe it is essential to criticize the government and its officials. That does not lend itself to stirring images. To make change, they must capitalize on a narrative that inspires.
The idea that Democrats, rather than Republicans, are patriots has the potential to change American politics. For 50 years, Republicans argued that overwhelmingly popular Democratic programs, such as the social safety net, government regulations, and infrastructure building programs, were socialist. But if Democrats can link those programs to a new vision of what it means to be an American, they will accomplish what FDR did: not only unite the left and liberal wings of the Democratic Party, but also attract disenchanted Republicans. – Heather Cox Richardson
Time Magazine journalist Peter Beinhart comments on the patriotic divide:
I think the danger of liberal patriotism is that it can be too harsh. Liberals will often tend to say the highest form of patriotism is criticism, is dissent. But if you think about a country a little bit like one family, one would probably not say that I express my love of my family primarily by criticizing it when it does things that are wrong. The criticism has to be loving. It has to also be connected to statements of affirmation.
On the conservative side, I think the danger is my country, right or wrong, a sense of – a kind of blind obedience to authority, and such a deep reverence for America’s symbols that one is not aware enough of that darker history that we have.
Liberal Patriots Mobilize
It seems clear that Democrats mobilized in response to the 2016 presidential election.
[Are you ready to mobilize, too?]
Many liberal patriots got off the sidelines and into the fight. It was a reality check. Without activism, many people, particularly marginalized communities, were in danger of losing the rights we take for granted.
Reviving this older stream of dissenting rests on the active interests and lost authority of its citizens and its fading democratic values. This would replace “my country right or wrong” with the centuries-long struggle, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, “to be true to what you said on paper.” This is the position from which voting rights, civil rights, immigrant rights and economic rights can be fought: with a vision of what is acceptably American and what is not. Decent people will rise to the challenge. – Jefferson Cowie
Let’s All Be Patriots
Is it possible to reach across the patriotic divide, given that we all love our country? To recognize and honor the ideals of the founding fathers but also strive to reach closer to the ideal?
However we get there, I like Beinhart’s idea of ‘loving criticism’. Everyone, not just liberal patriots, can use this to make the world a better place.
How do you reach across the political divide? Drop a note in the comments section below.
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I believe people are more complicated than the labels liberal or conservative suggest. To me it implies that I can’t have values that translate to action in both camps. The strengths I exhibit from the list include spirituality and freedom, respect and learning, loyalty and caring in nearly equal measure. I can honor my past while trying to improve personally and collectively. If I feel this way, there are others in the same boat. It seems, in the public eye anyway, that if you don’t embrace all of what one side deems worthy, you are automatically relegated to the other. If I made my personal opinions known on many current items publicly, I would be concerned that each “side” in turn would vilify me. Thus I keep my thoughts to myself for the most part. How can we have meaningful dialogue if we stay fearful of differing opinions and beliefs? How can we come together to realize we need each other and our differing stances?
I can relate to what you are saying. I tend to keep my opinions to myself as well. Just calling myself a ‘liberal patriot’ is scary! My political views are all over the spectrum and some are conservative enough to raise eyebrows with my liberal friends. We humans are complicated, but on election day we must pull the level one way or the other (or, in my case, ‘rotate the wheel’.) And without a doubt, we do need each other.
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