What Do You Really Mean When You Say You “Love America”?
There are days when I scroll through social media and have to stop myself mid-eye-roll because the contradictions are exhausting. Lately, I’ve been sitting with one in particular—the way so many MAGA folks say they “love America.”
I don’t ask this to provoke. I ask because I genuinely want to understand. What exactly do you mean when you say you love America? Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like you can’t stand most of the people who live in it.
You rage against civil liberties—rights guaranteed by the very Constitution you claim to worship. You reject the separation of church and state, even though that protection was designed for everyone—including you. You claim to love the economy, but despise the blue states that actually drive it. You call poor people lazy, blame immigrants for everything, and mock workers for wanting a living wage—something your grandparents fought and bled for.
You say government is the problem—unless it’s enforcing your beliefs. You loathe big corporations for being “too global,” yet hate unions for protecting American jobs. You say you love the land, but fight every effort to protect it. You claim to stand for “freedom,” but only if it means controlling other people’s bodies, books, and identities.
And let’s be real—you say you hate pedophiles, but you idolize a man who hid his crimes against children and surrounded himself with people just like him.
So again, when you say you love America, what are you really talking about? The soil? The flag? The fantasy? Because it seems like what you actually love is the idea of America belonging only to people who look, pray, and think exactly like you.
Reflections from the Road
My recent travels took me through Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky—the Jerry Springer triangle, as I called it with a laugh that didn’t quite reach my spirit. But the truth is, these places hold the blueprint for America’s contradictions.
In Alabama, I was reminded that this land was once Mexican land, long before it was rebranded into the myth of the “white man’s” frontier. Cowboy hats, boots, and even country music—all of it emerged from a fusion of Mexican, Black, and Indigenous traditions. The vaqueros—Mexican horsemen—shaped what we now call “cowboy culture,” and the banjos and beats that define country music came from West African instruments and rhythms carried by enslaved people. But history was rewritten to paint it white, leaving out the people who created the sound and style of the South.
Then, in Tennessee, the news was filled with fear—warnings about “South American cartels” on the streets and “foreign thugs” invading homes. The language was coded, weaponized to spark panic and justify violence. Yet at that same moment, President Trump was blowing up small fishing boats near Trinidad—men simply trying to make a living. Their bodies washed ashore while mothers searched the water for sons who left to feed their families.
This is the contradiction of the United States: a country that warns its people about the “dangers” of the Global South while creating those dangers through imperial violence. It exports suffering, then condemns the survivors who seek refuge. It preaches freedom while building cages.
And through it all, it keeps calling this love.
The Real Roots of Country and Cowboy Culture
(For readers who love history with truth intact)
Cowboy culture came from Mexican vaqueros in the 1500s—skilled cattle herders who introduced the gear, terminology (“rodeo,” “lasso,” “ranch”), and techniques later copied by white settlers.
Country music evolved from the meeting of African and Mexican traditions in the American South. The banjo, for instance, came from West Africa, while the rhythmic structures trace back to Indigenous and Latin folk songs.
These blended roots were deliberately erased during the 20th century to frame “country” as white and “Western,” excluding the Black and Brown musicians who built its sound.
(Sources: Smithsonian Folkways; PBS “Country Music” Documentary by Ken Burns; National Museum of African American History and Culture.)
I don’t love America. I love humanity.
I love peace, even when the world makes it hard to.
What I want is a world where we stop confusing dominance with destiny. Where we stop calling cruelty patriotism. Where love for land never outweighs love for people.
So when you say you love America—what do you really mean?
Because love without truth isn’t love at all.