In 2020, I wrote “Pragmatic Patriot.” Since then, I have lost much of my positivity about the United States of America.

What changed?

So many bonfires continue to burn, with our most sacred and vital principles as fuel. Tribalism has grown worse. Education is abandoned in favor of indoctrination. Books are banned, hard-fought rights revoked. The undefended among us are violently threatened, gleefully attacked, detained, and arrested by armed, masked, and unidentified persons. The United States military is supporting these terrifying acts on American streets, under the guise of a psychotic government position that criminals and terrorists are invading the country. A nation that once soared to the moon now sends people to twenty-first-century concentration camps.

Conspiracy theory is exacerbated by ugliness and amplified by a willingness – even eagerness – to make all manner of accusations against our neighbors. Hate decorates shirts and hats and slobbers out in rants and posts. Many who fuel the rabid bile serve in positions of power in our government.

Still, for every act of aggression, there are acts of generosity and resilience that define the best of what America may again be. In small towns and big cities, millions of Americans rally in protest of a crumbling morality, testifying against the terrible, illegal, and cruel acts directed by our most senior elected officials. Our courts are filled with patriots waging battles for the Constitution against lying madmen and women.

Has the time passed for the dream that is America?

I am disheartened, no longer pragmatic. But I have hope that our better angels will return.

And I am still a patriot.