Idk if it's an American phenomenon but our hard right does it as well, even (or especially) among people that are only sort of political. Countries each have their own sort of national geist and the relative financial success and relations between countries are just expressions of that geist.
America, in this view, became so rich because Americans just sort of worked hard and liked inventing things. Even taking that to be true (which I generally dont) there's never any investigation into why the people are this way, or if there is it's explained via another invocation of the geist. "Well Americans are industrious and inventive because they value individialusm"
The national enemies become personified as stereotypes, usually aligning to how people from those countries are portrayed in 80s action movies, but because liberalism has no sense of time, it's just the eternal character of these nations.
This is what nationalism and national identity do. They turn states into individual characters you either loyally support or oppose. The character's personality (in the minds of those people) is whatever has been pressed upon a population enough through the media outlets.
This is why it is so important to engage in struggle against nationalism, national identity and the concept of borders.
Idk if it's an American phenomenon but our hard right does it as well, even (or especially) among people that are only sort of political. Countries each have their own sort of national geist and the relative financial success and relations between countries are just expressions of that geist.
America, in this view, became so rich because Americans just sort of worked hard and liked inventing things. Even taking that to be true (which I generally dont) there's never any investigation into why the people are this way, or if there is it's explained via another invocation of the geist. "Well Americans are industrious and inventive because they value individialusm"
The national enemies become personified as stereotypes, usually aligning to how people from those countries are portrayed in 80s action movies, but because liberalism has no sense of time, it's just the eternal character of these nations.
This is what nationalism and national identity do. They turn states into individual characters you either loyally support or oppose. The character's personality (in the minds of those people) is whatever has been pressed upon a population enough through the media outlets.
This is why it is so important to engage in struggle against nationalism, national identity and the concept of borders.