The Incoherence of American Patriotism: Why Patriots Didn’t Believe in What They Thought They Believed In

By John-Michael Kuczynski

What did the American patriot of the 1950s believe in?

He believed in "America," in freedom, in "the American way." He believed in Uncle Sam, in democracy, in falling on grenades in Korea. But he did not believe in proceduralism. He didn’t even know what that was.

What he believed in was a moral vision: a vision of virtue, strength, courage, and freedom. He believed that the American system protected those things. Whether he was right or wrong about that, the important point is this:

He did not believe in the system itself. He believed in something he thought the system served.

You Can’t Believe in a Procedure

No one believes in procedure per se. You can use a process, follow it, appreciate its utility. But you can't worship it. You can't pledge your life to it. You can't die for it.

You can believe in justice. You can believe in freedom. You can believe in a god or a cause. But you cannot believe in a filing protocol, in majority votes, or in administrative order.

And yet that is all that remains.

The System Didn’t Fail—It Revealed Itself

People say America is falling apart. Maybe. But if so, it isn’t because the legal system failed.

It’s because the legal system succeeded.

It became what it always was: a procedural machine.

• It no longer tolerates moral workarounds.

• It has purged the inconsistencies.

• It is more procedurally coherent than ever.

And that is precisely why it no longer inspires belief.

The old patriot believed in the substance he associated with America: honor, family, duty, freedom. Now, that substance is gone. Only the machine remains. And no one salutes a machine.

The New Patriots Believe in Something Else

There are still patriots in America. But they believe in different things:

• The rights of marginalized groups.

• Environmental justice.

• Pluralism.

They still have a moral center. They still believe in America because they believe it protects something.

But that belief, too, exists outside the procedural frame. It leans on the same thing the old patriot leaned on: the idea that the system supports something good.

If that belief collapses—so does the patriotism.

Final Thought

The patriot never believed in the process. He believed in what he thought the process protected.

Now the process stands alone.

And people have no reason to stand with it.

That is the incoherence of modern American patriotism:

They never believed in what they thought they believed in.