Conservatives hate America
So maybe I do hate aspects of the country in which I was born. Perhaps this makes me the first person to ever be born into a nation deserving of critique, or maybe I'm just an old-fashioned hater infected by the insidious woke mind virus. But there was always a hint of projection in right wingers telling me I hate the United States. As they huffed and puffed and demanded I love our country – whatever it means to love a country – they bemoaned civilizational progress that had transformed the nation, making it a little less white, a little less straight, a little less Christian, and a little less crushingly conventional.
The folks with spittle flying from their pursed lips, behind their gritted teeth, hate when they turn on the TV and a major corporation advertises its products with a gay couple, possibly with a kid in tow, or a person of indeterminate gender. They hate that pro football fields and basketball courts and baseball fields have messaging saying racism is not, in fact, good. They hate that their child or grandchild or the local Starbucks barista rejects suffocating gender norms and maybe dyes their hair purple or green or blue. They hate that they can't use slurs in mixed company. And they hate that an overwhelming majority of their fellow Americans rejected the Big Boy's bid for another term in the White House.
In short, conservatives hate America.
Here's the thing though: American conservatives couldn't say what they wanted to say about the prisoner exchange. If they could, they would have let loose with homophobic and racist invective about Griner, who is both black and gay.
Nothing the American right says or does is in good faith. Cultural norms have shifted enough to make naked racism and homophobia untenable if one is to keep their job and (some of) their friends and family. There is now social punishment for hating someone for their immutable traits. They know they can't log on to Facebook or Twitter and say, "Why would we want to rescue a gay, black, dreadlock-wearing woman who knelt for the national anthem during the George Floyd protests of 2020? Why would we care about the life of an ungrateful black bitch like Griner?"
It's not exactly a new phenomenon. American conservatives during the Civil Rights era had to fake interest in state's rates – the Final Boss of bad-faith politics – to keep black folks from eating at lunch counters and attending public schools. "States rights!" they'd howl as they lynched a black man for having a sandwich at a diner during his lunch break. "States rights!" they'd bark as they burned crosses in the yards of black families who had dared move in to their suburban neighborhood. Hell, the South had to pretend the Civil War was about something other than maintaining the hellish institution of slavery. None of this is new. It's bad faith all the way down.
Just say it: You hate America.