Well to be quite fair, it's better to judge a country by it's progress and current state of affairs than by its past actions. Because if we judged every country by their actions in the past, not many countries would have clean hands.

From 2016-2021, I was ready to move away. I was quite disillusioned by everything. What changed? Soccer 💀. Soccer made me comically nationalist for our national teams.

Honestly being in that environment of being able to be innocently prideful of my home without thinking about the past helped put things in perspective.

I'm now prideful to be American, and proud that my home heavily invests in NATO. I'm an adult now, and I've been working to push for some more improvements in things like infrastructure. I don't cringe at 4th of July celebrations anymore, and I feel great that I'm making an impact.

You probably won't see me putting a flag outside my home, but I have a lovely high quality flag.

Our national park system is the best in the world, our ecosystem, nature, and geography are spectacular and diverse. And NASA is phenomenal.

Don't allow yourself to wallow in this cynical disillusionment. It's not good for your mental health to focus on the terrible parts of America without having the ability to change those parts.