America stinks. At least that’s what Donald J. Trump seemed to be saying before becoming president.
He did not believe in “American exceptionalism,” he said, because America was not exceptional. Instead, it was a “laughingstock” that was no better than Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. By promising to make America great again, he made it clear that he believed it was not great anymore.
That was then. Now the president who trash-talked America more than any other in modern times says anyone who trash-talks America should leave. The president, who took office with an inaugural address decrying “American carnage,” now says that it is unpatriotic to speak ill of the country. And on Tuesday, he went further, equating attacks on him by his political opponents with attacks on “the Country, the Flag.” CONT.
Peter Baker, New York Times