I’ve been thinking about this amped up conservative rhetoric that liberals and leftists hate America. We all know that’s BS. Right? Except it’s not, and we should respond to it for what it is.
“I love an America I grew up in. I love an America I believe in, that I lived most of my life in. Now, the idea of America that you’re fighting and “winning” for is killing that America I live in, that I love. So you’re right. I hate what you imagine America to be… because it is trying to murder the America that I love. And I don’t use the word “murder” lightly, and I apply it to you. And if that means to you that I hate America… then you’re right! The America you believe in isn’t lovable.”
That’s all.
I understand this feeling, and I do think it’s a valid way to feel. I don’t doubt that you had a happy childhood and early adulthood in the America you remember. However, I think that your explanation - that America changed fundamentally - is not the correct one. America, as other users have pointed out in their comments, has always been a vile state. You can see where it’s going now because you’re a politically aware adult. If you had been one in the times you remember from your childhood, you probably would have seen it then as well. It’s not America that’s changing fundamentally (it is changing, just not fundamentally), it’s you.