Why the Left hates July 4 but sometimes pretends to celebrate it.

Paul nailed it a few days ago, and his point deserves elaboration.

A bit more than a week ago, Paul wrote, “America, love it or admit you don’t.” Much of it was about the Left’s phony patriotism. The line that struck me was, “[C]urrent left-wing dogma is almost impossible to reconcile with love for, or even non-hatred of, America.”

I just don’t see any way that can be refuted. Sometimes the Left tries to fake it; increasingly, as contempt for the country has taken over, it doesn’t. The sharpness of the growth of the Left’s contempt for the country is scary — scary and ominous, given that, at some point, they will re-occupy the White House and control one or both houses of Congress. (To be specific, in 2005, the middle of George W. Bush’s presidency, 88% of Democrats said they were proud to be American. Now, only 20 years later, it’s less than half that).

Abe Greenwald in Commentary gives closeted anti-Americanism the exposure it deserves:

A psychologist specializing in seasonal disorders once calculated that January 24 is the most depressing day of the year. But I doubt that holds true for everyone in the U.S. Recall that in a previous newsletter, I discussed a recent Gallup poll finding that only 36 percent of Democrats are “very” or “extremely” proud to be an American. If you’re among the Democratic majority, then, your worst day is tomorrow: July 4.

This makes me feel like eating a couple of extra hot dogs just to celebrate how miserable they are.

Liberals and leftists have been waging war on Independence Day and patriotism generally for years now. In 2019, almost a year before the country’s short-lived re-founding as a woke nation, Time published an article titled “How I Came to View the American Flag as a Threat.” Once 2020 came around, that sentiment was everywhere. On July 4 of that year, the activist and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick tweeted: “Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of ‘independence’, while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all.”

One might think about congratulating Kaepernick at least for his candor, which was better than his passing. The problem is that the “candor” was an illusion.

I appreciated his tweet because it revealed him as a liar. In 2016, when Kaepernick began taking a knee during the National Anthem, he claimed that he was doing so out love of country. “I’m not anti-America,” he said. “I love America…. I think having these conversations helps everybody have a better understanding of where everybody is coming from.”

This reminded me of the response from the Montgomery County, Maryland School Board and its allies to the Supreme Court’s recent decision about whether parents should be able to opt their kids out of “sex education” classes that present transgenderism et al. as merely another “choice”:

"While we are extremely disappointed in the Supreme Court's decision, unfortunately, we are not surprised," the Montgomery County Education Association said in a statement. "MCEA believes that our public schools should remain inclusive places where differences are celebrated."

At one point, I couldn’t decide whether it was worse if (1) the Left believed this gauzy “inclusive” flim-flam, or (2) if instead it didn’t and was lying to try to hoodwink public opinion so it could push the actual agenda, namely, sexually mutilating operations for 12 year old’s. I now think the latter is worse, not so much because I think sexual mutilation is bad as because the adoption of a Grand Motif of Lying will erode public and political debate to a degree so toxic that a rationally functioning democracy in this country — the kind the Framers contemplated — will become all but impossible. All this, mind you, from the same precincts of the Left who are bleating at ten zillion decibels that Trump’s lying (not insignificant but not hidden either) is the real threat to democracy.

But I digress. Returning to the Kaepernick episode, Commentary continues:

The media, of course, ate up [Kaepernick’s I-actually-love-America] theme. Article after article elaborated on Kaepernick’s protest as the highest form of patriotism.

I’ve seen this again and again in the debates I’ve done at law schools. The Left will spend a big chunk of its time spitting acid at the country, then without batting an eyelash proclaim that they are the real patriots because they believe in protest.

Don’t you get it? Occupy Wall Street — you know, smash-and-grab so you can steal some really nifty sneakers — is the latter day incarnation of the Boston Tea Party!

But after 2020, love of country would never again be cited as a defense for leftist agitation. And expressions of patriotism could get you deplatformed from a campus speaking gig. The George Floyd Summer changed everything on the left. It freed the radicals from publicly pretending to appreciate America. And ever since then, we’ve been subjected to all sorts of arguments about the evils of celebrating Independence Day.

My all-time favorite example is National Geographic’s July 4, 2021 tweet: “Scientists found that vulnerable people and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to air pollution from firework celebrations.” And I’m sure many leftists believe this to be the secret purpose of fireworks altogether.

Donald Trump is riding a big winning streak right now, what with today’s passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, the setting back of Iran’s nuclear threat, gas prices at a four-year low, the better-than-expected jobs report, and more. But these things tend not to last, and when the political climate turns more favorable to the Democrats, we could find ourselves under the rule of people who say they love America but who actually think that “vulnerable people and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to air pollution from firework celebrations,” not to mention mathematics.

So as we’re a day away from commemorating America’s independence, I have some questions for my fellow citizens on the left: If you don’t like this country, why do you think it’s cruel, instead of kind, to prevent people from coming here? Why do you insist that it’s wrong to deport illegals from such a horrible land?…

The left is sure to be stumped by these questions, but I think I know the answer. America is objectively great, and that greatness has been experienced by leftists, no matter what they claim. In other words, America’s enduring greatness has become its own “self-evident” truth, and that’s what drives its enemies absolutely crazy.

And they can go be crazy, as far as I’m concerned. The right to go nuts is just another part of America’s virtue. But, God willing, they can go nuts without taking the country with them.