Even the assholes are Americans.
There is a recommended diary I spent too much time commenting on telling anyone who was glad Chicago lost the Olympic bid because it would hurt Obama to get the hell out of the country. The diarist was intentionally imitating the Love it or Leave it tack the right has taken for generations. There was even a comment that went well beyond telling them to get out, and though that comment was eventually hidden, it had mostly people agreeing with it until someone pointed out that it explicitly violated the rules of this site.
I first got animated about politics as a kid 40 years ago because of the way the anti-war protesters were being told the same thing and being called unamerican. The fact that I happened to agree with the protesters made me identify with their plight more easily, but it had nothing to do with what I objected to. They had a right to peacefully agitate for what they believed, whether I agreed with what they said or not. Doing so is the very essence of being American in its best sense, as far as I'm concerned.
And wrong as the yahoos are, I'll be damned if I don't try to nip this 'turning the tables' in the bud now. I'd surely rather speak up for their right to be wrong now than let our own yahooism get out of control and leave me stuck defending them for far longer.
What's more, let's be honest about just how beyond the pale (or not) the GOP reaction to the Olympic bid is. When Bush was President, I would not have wanted petty, meaningless things that boosted short-term, sports-style pride in America. Why not? Because it would have given political capital to Bush that would far more harm than any petty grounds for gloating would do good.
I didn't advertise that attitude at the time, because I knew saying it loudly would cause a backlash. Even now, I'm reluctant to say it, but in the wake of the other diary, I'm writing it for anyone to read, because it's necessary for our own sanity that the truth be available. Sure, there are some on the right who hate Americans more than they love America. But hoping for short-term losses, even with real suffering like unemployment, is no proof of that. It's possible for anyone, on the wrong side or not, to believe that things must get worse in order for them to get better.
None of which makes me any less disgusted by much of what I see coming from the anti-Obama forces. I don't want to spending my time defending them. But just as the ACLU must stand up for principles even when their particular clients are reprehensible, so should we here stand up for the principle that one may be wrong, unpopular, and to the eyes of others outrageous, and still be Americans with a right to speak.