If we define patriotism as taking pride in America's highest ideals and wanting good things for the American People, then liberals are definitely the real patriots. The conservative version of patriotism is weird, since it is almost the opposite. Rather than taking pride in America's highest ideals, it rejects them. In a nation that's extraordinary for pioneering a system of laws with checks and balances, conservatives want a "unitary executive" with a president who essentially functions as a four-year dictator (at least when he's a Republican). In a nation celebrated for its immigrant heritage and great diversity, they want to close the borders and promote white supremacy. In a nation with a long history of leaders who warned against foreign entanglements and the military industrial complex, they fetishize the military and want to turn the nation imperial. In a nation founded with a radical break from tradition and a disruption of traditional power structures, they're reactionaries who want to return to an earlier time and restore traditional authorities. In a nation famed for its separation of church and state, they salivate for a Christian theocracy. They love America in the abstract, but hate the things that make it America. And meanwhile they take a perverse joy in the suffering of their fellow Americans (at least those who aren't white, Christian, native-born, rural southern conservatives).