A Gallup poll shows that while 74% of Republicans are “extremely proud” to be Americans, only 32% of Democrats and 23% of self-described liberals feel the same.
Why does the left hate America?
Let’s stipulate that America is not perfect. I don’t need to list the imperfections, because the left and their news puppets remind us of them daily.
But notwithstanding her many flaws, America stands tall against other countries. Here are some metrics:
One is racism. That’s an abomination for which the left delightfully condemns America, even as they demand that we discriminate on the basis of race.
But in fact, America is now one of the least racist countries in the world, far behind Egypt (ranked No. 1), Russia (No. 4), Japan (No. 9), India and an imaginary country that the survey called “Palestine” (which apparently will be a very racist country if it ever becomes one).
In wealth, America is in the top few if you leave out the fortuitous wealth of small oil countries like Qatar and Kuwait. Wealth does not make a country good, but poverty can certainly make it bad.
In economic freedom, America ranks fourth out of 162 countries. Socialist paradise Venezuela ranks dead last. Huh, go figure.
Americans have won the most Nobel Prizes. In fact, we’ve won nearly triple the number of the second-highest country, and about the same number as countries second through sixth combined.
In Nobel Prizes, we’re a dynasty.
It’s not just in science. Americans have won the most Nobels in five of the six categories: chemistry, economics, physics, medicine and, notably, peace. (The sixth category is literature, where the French lead.)
Note that these American winners are chosen by committees of Swedes and Norwegians, not Americans.
Finally, most would say that America is blessed with visual beauty. Even Woody Guthrie — not exactly a MAGA hat wearer — sang of beauty from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters in a land “made for you and me.”
But the left still hates that land.
I think their hatred is not despite the fact that there is so much to love about America, but because of it. The American dream gets in the way of the left’s plot to swap it for an atheistic and socialistic nightmare — ruled by them, of course.
In other words, the left hates America because it stands in the way of their power. They’d rather rule over hell than live in heaven.
There’s another, less obvious reason that the left hates America. The clue to this second reason is the left’s obsessive compulsion to display their virtue and morality.
This behavior has become so prevalent that it’s been named. It’s “virtue signaling” or, as I call it, “moral preening.”
Moral preening is a coping mechanism for an inferiority complex. The hateful, hapless and humorless soothe their feelings of inferiority with conspicuous displays of superiority.
For example, for many years the left has talked pretty about their compassion toward the downtrodden. But the truly compassionate people are conservatives, who at all income levels quietly make more charitable donations than noisy liberals.
Here’s another example. Have you noticed that electric vehicles look funny? That’s because they’re designed to. They’re an eye-catching stage from which to shout, “I’m a wonderful person.”
Here’s another. The left here in Aspen now makes a show of their “grief therapy” for the angst they feel or pretend to feel about global warming. This melodrama must be performed in groups, of course, to maximize the preening opportunities.
Afterward, oblivious to the irony, they amuse themselves in being transported uphill by motorized lifts powered by electricity generated from burning coal or natural gas (just like the motors in those look-at-me electric vehicles) so that they can slide back down. Over and over.
One more example of the left’s moral preening. After mostly losing their war on Christmas, they now lecture us on the evils of that prototypical American holiday, Thanksgiving.
In short, the American left’s goal is not to actually do good, but to feel good — to assuage their feelings of inferiority. They accomplish that by dragging down the rest of America.
Of course, America itself has nothing to do with this illness. These leftists also would hate France, Canada, Japan or New Zealand if they moved there (as they often threaten to, but never do).
Heck, if they and their children were starving in the socialist utopia of Venezuela, they’d hate even that. Wherever a leftist finds himself, that is where he hates. Because it feels good.
This is why the left is wildly triggered by President Trump. It’s not his policies, which are often less conservative than George Bush’s. It’s because Trump calls them out for their boring, hypocritical, self-indulgent, counterproductive feel-goodery.
So when leftists make a show of hating on America, don’t persuade them with facts and logic. It will only make them hate America — and you — all the more.
These people are beyond persuasion. They need treatment. And I don’t mean global warming grief therapy.
(Published Dec. 1, 2019 in the Aspen Times at https://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/glenn-k-beaton-two-reasons-why-the-left-hates-america/ )
the Aspen beat 
Mr Beaton, this article about the left’s moral problem regarding the United States, still the greatest nation in the history of man despite Barack Hussein Obama’s best efforts to drag it down to the level of the effeminiate Europeans, is excellent in its conciseness, directness, accuracy in content, ease of reading–very well paragraphed! Thank you, congratulations, and keep up the good work!
And here’s the nugget: “They’d rather rule over hell than live in heaven.”
It is simplistic to say that the left “hates America.” What they hate is the system under which a group of people — most of whom are white — have achieved a high standard of living, while a minority of people have not. That has been partly as the result of deliberate exclusion from key elements of society — such as education and finance — or simply as the result of benign neglect of minorities by the majority. Even though the most egregious cases of discrimination have been eliminated since about 1970, the negative impacts last for generations.
That’s not to say that people who have been successful in the U.S. have not achieved that success as the result of their inheritance of successful cultural habits, as well as (in most cases) considerable effort on their part in gaining education and applying it to performing productive work.
It is also not to deny that even the poorest people in the U.S. have higher living standards than billions of people in over-populated “developing” nations, partly as the result of many government programs that transfer wealth from higher income people to lower income people.
It is also not to excuse the deliberate refusal of extreme leftists to acknowledge the need for all people to adopt the cultural habits that lead to success for individuals, families, and communities. In particular, commitment to quality education; compliance with formal laws and informal civility towards others; performing useful work; and deferring child-bearing until a couple is sufficiently mature and financially secure to raise children to the same or higher standards.
In short, reducing inequality by improving the living standards of low income, generally low-skilled people, requires everyone to exercise not only existing or desired “rights,” but also responsibilities.
Fair points, Ted.
“What they hate is the system under which a group of people — most of whom are white — have achieved a high standard of living, while a minority of people have not. That has been partly as the result of deliberate exclusion from key elements of society — such as education and finance — or simply as the result of benign neglect of minorities by the majority.”
Some good points except your above ‘white’ non sequitur.
Most rich people in India are brown, in China are Asian, in USA are white – what’s your point?
Also hierarchy is inevitable in any aspects of life you care to mention – wealth, health, good looks, relationships….It is not necessarily a sign of failure of the system, but it is true that extra processes to ameliorate excessive differences should be put in place, otherwise a revolution will correct it (HT to Jordan P).
You may have mentioned America’s political freedom (lately suffering under PC) , and high social mobility index.
Also, I saw a young person ask at a debate, ‘What’s the use of being free if you are hungry and homeless’.
A good question.
A question leftist animal rights extremist answer when they release well fed and housed animals in Zoos in order for them to be free to be hungry and be eaten in nature.
I was referring to the same country that Glenn was referring to, i.e., the United States where, in fact, the dominant culture has been European-American and the majority of people — particularly those with the most wealth and power — have been and continue to be white.
As an old white guy myself with considerable education and experience in traveling around the U.S. and other parts of the world, I think that European-American culture is superior to others in terms of the material standard of living and freedom that it delivers to MOST people, including an increasing number of non-whites who are smart enough to adopt the universally applicable cultural practices that lead to a decent standard of living if not fantastic wealth and power.
But I also recognize a number of ways that other people — particularly Native Americans and blacks — have at best been excluded from the nation’s physical and institutional endowments, and at worst been horribly victimized by certain major factions of white people with the support of all levels of government that they controlled. So, I understand why many of them who have not yet succeeded in joining America’s economic mainstream would be resentful, even as I point out that the way for EVERYBODY to achieve reasonable success for themselves and their descendants is to adopt a set of cultural practices that have proven to work, particularly in countries with “white” majority populations (and also in several major Asian countries).
As to China, I would note that China historically was a feudal society in which a small fraction of the population owned most of the land, and therefore most of the wealth, while the vast majority of the population were serfs living in abject poverty. This politically untenable situation led to the violent takeover by Communists, even without the ruling plutocracy being additionally identifiable by different
racial or religious characteristics. So, the lesson from there and other places (Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua) where Communist mobs have overthrown feudal “capitalist” plutocracies, is that the owners of the most wealth had better not flaunt it, and had better show some concern for the “have nots” if for no reason other than their own future welfare. (Overall, the U.S. does have many government programs to assist lower income people, which extreme conservatives oppose and extreme liberals fail to acknowledge in order to promote ever more such programs at the expense of “the rich.”)
India has a similar history of vast differences in wealth and power between a ruling elite (the British, who were “white,” and their Indian lackeys who were “brown”) and an impoverished underclass that even included people marked as “untouchables.” The reason that this situation was overthrown relatively peacefully was attributable to the opposition being led by Mohandas Gandhi (rather than Mao Zedong) and with the British being able and somewhat willing to go back to Britain where they belonged.
Comparing these complex issues of human society to the issue of animals in zoos is such a contorted analogy that i won’t bother to address that separate issue.
I thought the article was great. I would encourage a return to our founding principles including the Constitution. As someone who grew up in America, I always felt sure that freedom and privacy were safely held. I can tell you that much of the silent majority is scared to say or do anything because our leaders have abandoned us, including the courts. It feels like hate and destruction will have dominion over love and prosperity for all as long as our leaders and courts allow it. Let’s hope the pendulum swings wide this time.