Algorithms and How Your Idea of Patriotism Isn't Absolute

I believe people need to take a step back and truly reflect on their goals, their values, and their hopes for the world. We must acknowledge the nuance and complexity of reality, and realize that patriotism—or love of country—is not defined by you alone. Who are you to enforce your personal beliefs on everyone else?

Your algorithm-reinforced tribal outrage and limited understanding give you no right to judge others. That isn't a personal attack; it's a structural one. What you see in your feed isn't a mirror of the country—it's shaped by engagement. Platforms optimize for attention; outrage and tribalism get more clicks and shares, so the algorithm surfaces more of it. Researchers have shown that content that triggers moral outrage spreads farther and faster than neutral content, and that social media can increase political polarization by clustering people into like-minded groups and amplifying emotional content.¹ So when you feel certain that "patriotism" or "love of country" has one obvious definition, part of what you're seeing is the result of systems that reward conflict and simplicity, not nuance.

What's going on: algorithm and patriotism

Scholars and pollsters have long shown that "patriotism" and "American identity" mean different things to different people—flag and military for some, dissent and reform for others, institutions and the rule of law for still others.² No single definition is the "real" one; the idea that love of country has one true form is a claim to own the symbol, not a fact. Stepping back means questioning whether the certainty you feel is yours or the algorithm's.

Populism past and present: when the person becomes absolute

Populist movements have a long history—from the People's Party and Huey Long in the U.S. to Peronism, Chavismo, and right-wing European populism. What many have in common is a shift from country or constitution as the reference point to a person as the embodiment of the people's will. That's where they diverge from the norm. In healthy constitutional systems, loyalty is to institutions, laws, and the peaceful transfer of power. In leader-centric populism, loyalty runs to the leader; the country becomes "great" or "saved" only through him or her. The constitution is invoked when it helps the leader and ignored or rewritten when it doesn't.⁵

Movements like MAGA didn't invent that pattern. But they illustrate it in a modern, algorithm-rich environment: the flag and "love of country" get fused with loyalty to a single figure. Patriotism is bent to mean "support this person" rather than "uphold the ideals and institutions of the republic." Past populisms often flamed out or institutionalized when the leader left; the risk today is that the psychological and informational infrastructure—confirmation bias, filter bubbles, and algorithmic reinforcement—makes it easier to hold that fusion in place and harder to correct when the person and the country are not the same thing.⁶

We're psychologically predisposed to let our environment shape us. We seek information that confirms what we already believe; we remember vivid stories more than dry statistics; we bond with our in-group and distrust the out-group. Algorithms didn't create those tendencies—they exploit them. Recommendation systems feed us more of what we click on; outrage and identity content get prioritized because they keep us engaged. The result is a bubble where "patriotism" and "love of country" are defined by the content you already agree with. Your idea of what the country is, and who is truly American, gets reinforced until it feels like the only possible meaning. That's not the same as what the country actually is—a pluralist project with competing definitions, protected by a constitution that doesn't name a single person as the arbiter of patriotism.¹

Trends from the past point to recurring risks: when the person becomes absolute, succession crises, institutional erosion, and the weaponization of national symbols follow. The potential issue now is that the same psychological biases and the same algorithmic incentives that deepen confirmation bubbles also deepen the conviction that one leader is the country—and that disagreeing with him is un-American. Breaking that link doesn't require giving up love of country. It requires insisting that the country is bigger than any one person and that patriotism can mean holding power to account, not bowing to it.

Fiction has been here before. In 1984, Orwell showed how "patriotism" is bent to the party: loyalty is to Big Brother, not to truth or to the people; Newspeak and doublethink make dissent unthinkable by making it unsayable.⁷ In V for Vendetta (graphic novel and film), the state has co-opted symbols and fear to demand loyalty to the regime; resistance is framed as treason until the distinction between country and government is forced back into view—"ideas are bulletproof."⁸ Those stories aren't prophecy. They're mirrors: when love of country gets bent to mean loyalty to a person or a party, the gap between the ideal and the demand is exactly what these works put on the page.

The flag and who owns it

The American flag is not a prop, nor is it yours to claim exclusively. Those who disagree with you are not "anti-American." Real patriots uphold the values America stands for and do not bow to a single man or a piece of fabric. America is an idea of a better world; people have fought and died for what that idea represents. Raising the flag should be a symbol of those ideals, not a battle cry against political enemies or people you simply disagree with.

Rights and who gets them

You have the right to free speech, to assemble or petition, expression of religion, justice—and we don't have the right to take those away from others. You can't be pro-America when you do everything in your power to take away the rights of other Americans. The First Amendment protects speech, assembly, petition, religion, and a free press and constrains the government from taking those away. "Pro-America" in that frame means defending those rights for everyone, including people you disagree with. When policies or rhetoric aim to silence, punish, or strip rights from other Americans, that's in tension with the idea of a country built on those freedoms.

Us vs. them—who is "them"?

We need to bring back us versus them—them being those that overstep or take advantage for personal gain. For some reason, us vs. them has now turned into ideology and party affiliation, turning neighbor against neighbor while a select few actually hurting society face no consequence.

That shift is well documented. When "us vs. them" is framed around behavior (those who overstep, cheat, harm), accountability is possible. When it's framed around identity—party, ideology, tribe—compromise and trust drop, and the "select few" who cause real harm get a pass because attention stays on tribal conflict.³

Sycophants, isolationism, and the inequality backdrop

Sycophants. A sycophant is someone who uses insincere flattery toward the powerful to gain favor—servile, obsequious behavior. The word goes back to ancient Greek (literally "one who shows the fig," a vulgar gesture); it came to mean a false accuser or slanderer, then a "servile flatterer" of princes. In the context of this piece: when loyalty runs to a person instead of institutions or the rule of law, sycophancy thrives. People flatter the leader, attack out-groups, and defend the in-group regardless of what the leader or the group actually does. That's the opposite of "us vs. them" aimed at those who overstep—it's "us vs. them" aimed at whoever the leader marks as "them," and the "select few" who benefit from the system stay out of the line of fire.

Isolationism and anti-immigration—then and now. The U.S. has been here before. In the 1920s, the Emergency Quota Act and the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 slashed immigration and imposed national-origin quotas favoring Northern and Western Europe; Southern and Eastern Europeans and Asians were explicitly framed as "un-American" or dangerous. Politicians blamed immigrants for unemployment and social unrest. A century later, the rhetoric echoes: "the wrong kinds of immigrants," preference for certain countries, ideological screening, and the same claim that immigrants threaten American workers and identity. Mexican and Latin American migrants have been recurring targets in both eras. Isolationism and nativism don't stay in the history books—they resurface when patriotism gets tied to a single vision of who "we" are and who doesn't belong.⁹

Class inequality and the wealth gap—the last 70 years. From the 1950s into the 1970s, growth was more broadly shared: the top 1% held about 28% of household wealth; top marginal tax rates were high; union membership was over 30%; and real median household income rose sharply. From the 1980s on, tax cuts, deregulation, and falling union density shifted the balance. By the 2000s, the top 1% share of pre-tax income had nearly doubled (from about 10% to 19% between 1978 and 2018), and the top 0.1% share of wealth jumped from about 7% to 18%. Recessions and the pandemic hit middle- and lower-income households harder while asset prices and high-end incomes recovered faster. The result is the most concentrated wealth in generations—a "select few" who benefit even when typical Americans don't.¹⁰

Wages, housing, education, goods—and the CEO gap. Real (inflation-adjusted) wages for typical workers have barely budged for decades; the average hourly wage has had roughly the same purchasing power as in the late 1970s. From 1970 to 2021, the cost of education, median new housing, and out-of-pocket medical care more than doubled in real terms, while average hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers grew only about 10%. The median home price went from about 1.4 times median household income in the early 1970s to more than five times income by the mid-2020s—so housing has become far less affordable even as wages stagnated. At the top, CEO pay has exploded relative to workers: in 1965 CEOs at large firms earned about 20 times the typical worker; by 2024 the ratio was 281-to-1. Between 1978 and 2023, CEO compensation rose about 1,085% while typical worker pay rose about 24%. That disparity isn't a law of nature—it reflects policy choices, bargaining power, and who gets to capture gains. When "us vs. them" is framed around identity instead of behavior, that gap rarely gets the focus it deserves.¹¹¹²

Morality and suffering

I'm not any arbiter of truth, and there's no reason to trust or listen to what I have to say—but I'm also able to understand morality. Does it lessen or increase the suffering of others? I don't know; I don't think it's that hard to understand right and wrong when you truly think about it.

"Does it lessen or increase the suffering of others?" is a workable moral lens—compatible with utilitarian thinking and with many religious and humanist traditions. You're not claiming to be the arbiter of truth; you're suggesting that moral reasoning doesn't require one. Evidence on moral foundations suggests people can disagree on a lot and still converge on harm reduction as a shared criterion when they're willing to think it through.⁴

Bottom line

Your idea of patriotism isn't absolute. It's one of many, and it's being fed by systems that profit from outrage and simplicity. Real patriotism can include dissent, criticism, and a demand that the country live up to its ideals instead of a single person or a piece of fabric. And "us vs. them" only makes sense if them is the people who overstep and cause harm—not the neighbor who votes differently.

Historical context. The tension between symbolic loyalty and critical loyalty isn't new. In the 1960s and 70s, flag-burning and draft resistance were framed as un-American by some and as the highest form of American dissent by others. Scholars later formalized the distinction as "blind" patriotism (uncritical loyalty) vs. "constructive" patriotism (critical loyalty aimed at improving the country).² The same pattern repeats: one group claims the flag and the word "patriot"; the other insists the country's ideals require holding power to account. Neither definition is handed down from the Constitution—they're competing interpretations, and algorithms today amplify the version that drives engagement.

Example. After the 2020 election, moralized and outraged content spread faster and farther than accurate, calming information; exposure to opposing views on social media has been shown in experiments to increase polarization rather than reduce it.¹ That doesn't mean everyone who shares a post is a bad person. It means the environment in which we form our beliefs is not neutral. Taking a step back means asking, again and again: are we reflecting on our goals and values, or are we performing for a feed that rewards something else?