Have the parties switched sides on patriotism?

Today, you might be more likely to hear "love it or leave it" from a liberal

A MAGA hat.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

In 1970, country music legend Ernest Tubbs scored a minor success with "It's America (Love It Or Leave It)." Like Merle Haggard's "The Fightin' Side of Me", released the same year, Tubbs pitted regular Americans against hippies, draft dodgers, and welfare cheats. "If things don't go their way, they could always move away," he sang. "That's what democracy means anyway."

In the midst of the Vietnam War, demands to love it or leave it were associated with the right. As recently as 2019, President Donald Trump deployed them against the so-called "squad" of Democratic congresswomen. For their part, liberals insisted "dissent is the highest form of patriotism." In different versions, that phrase (often falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson) became a staple of left-wing rhetoric.

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.