Millions of Americans attended parades, fireworks and other Independence Day events on Tuesday, celebrating the courage of the nation’s 18th century patriots who fought for independence from Great Britain and what they considered an unjust government. Those events also honor the military and those who sacrificed in other conflicts that helped preserve the nation’s freedom over its 247-year history.
That is only one version of a “patriot.” Today, the word and its variants have morphed beyond the original meaning. It has become infused in political rhetoric and school curriculums, with varying definitions, while being appropriated by white nationalist groups. Trying to define what a patriot is depends on who is being asked.
The original patriots
While the word’s origins come from ancient Greece, its basic meaning in American history is someone who loves his or her country.
The original patriots come from the American Revolution, most often associated with figures such as Sam Adams and Benjamin Franklin. But enslaved people who advocated for abolition and members of native communities trying to recover or retain their sovereignty also saw themselves as patriots, said Nathaniel Sheidley, president and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces in Boston. The group runs the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, which played central roles in the revolution.
“They took part in the American Revolution. There were working people advocating for their voices to be heard in the political process,” Sheidley said.
The hallmark of patriotism then, he said, was “a sense of self-sacrifice, of caring more about one’s neighbors and fellow community members than one’s self.”
Patriotism has had more than one meaning
In some ways, the view of patriotism has always been on parallel tracks with civic and ethnic nationalism, historians say.
“Patriotism really depends on which American is describing himself as patriotic and what version or vision of the country they hold dear,” said Matthew Delmont, a historian at Dartmouth.
Opposition to government and dissent have been common features of how patriotism has been defined, he said. He cited the example of Black military members who fought in World War II and advocated for civil rights when they returned. They also saw themselves as patriots.
“Part of patriotism for them meant not just winning the war, but then coming home and trying to change America, trying to continue to fight for civil rights and to have actual freedom and democracy here in the United States,” Delmont said.
For many white Americans who see themselves as patriotic, “They’re thinking of other white Americans as the true definition of Americans,” Delmont said.
How the definition has evolved
Far-right and extremist groups have branded themselves with American motifs and the term “patriot” since at least the early 20th century, when the second Ku Klux Klan became known for the slogan “100% Americanism,” said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.
By the 1990s, so many antigovernment and militia groups were using the term to describe themselves that watchdog groups referred to it as the “ Patriot movement.”
That extremist wave, which included Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, faded in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But many such groups resurfaced when Barack Obama became president, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which closely tracked the movement.
Since then, many right-wing groups have called themselves “patriots” as they’ve fought election processes, LGBTQ+ rights, vaccines, immigration, diversity programs in schools and more. Former President Donald Trump frequently refers to his supporters as “patriots.”
How white nationalist groups use it
The term works as a branding tool because many Americans have a positive association with “patriot,” which hearkens back to the Revolutionary War soldiers who beat the odds to found the country, said Kurt Braddock, an American University professor and researcher at the Polarization and Extremism Research &Innovation Lab.
One example is the white supremacist militia group Patriot Front, which researchers say uses patriotism as a sort of camouflage to hide racist and bigoted values. Some white nationalist groups may genuinely view themselves as pushing back against tyranny — even if in reality they are “very selective” about what parts of the Constitution they want to defend, Braddock said.
Gaines Foster, a historian at Louisiana State University, said patriotism at one point was seen as a civic nationalism that held the belief “that you’re an American because you believe in democracy, you believe in equality, you believe in opportunity. In other words, you believe certain things about the way the government works, and that’s a very inclusive vision.”
He said the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was the most dramatic example of how the view of patriotism has shifted in recent years, saying “people began to lean less toward a commitment to democracy and more to the notion in the Declaration of Independence that there is a ‘right of revolt,’ and that becomes patriotism.”
How patriotism gets linked to conspiracy theories
Bob Evnen has been active in Nebraska Republican politics for nearly 50 years and was instrumental a decade ago in enacting a requirement for the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited in schools. The measure doesn’t force students to participate, but does require schools to set aside time each class day for the pledge to be recited.
He pushed for the pledge policy to be included in the state’s social studies curriculum standards, despite criticism from some lawmakers and civil rights organizations who labeled it “forced patriotism.”
The intent, he said, is “to teach our children to become young patriots who have an intellectual understanding of the genius of this country and who feel an emotional connection to it.”
“Somewhere along the line, we lost that — to our detriment, I believe,” Evnen said.