An American patriot is one who supports and defends the United States of America.

An American patriot is not defined as someone who is a loyalist to Trump, no more than it is defined as someone who is a loyalist to Obama. An American patriot is not loyal to an administration. The administration is not the United States of America.

How does the United States of America define itself?

This should be an easy answer for any American who attended public school in this country. And I am not talking about what was taught in history or civics class. I am talking about the fact American children, from kindergarten on, stood up each morning, put a hand over their heart, and said the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag.

What did that pledge mean? 

We said it each morning. Every conservative I know from my personal life has strongly supported keeping the Pledge of Allegiance in our classrooms. As American adults, we often say it before civic, professional, and public meetings.

Here is the pledge in its entirety, please stick with me, because I am going to break it down.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

In the first part, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands” the person saying the pledge is acknowledging that the flag they are addressing is a symbol of their country AKA the United States of America, which is a Republic.

They are not worshiping the flag per se but see it as the symbol of the country they are giving their pledge of allegiance.

What is a pledge?  It is defined as a solemn promise.

What is the person promising? 

They are pledging their allegiance…which means loyalty.

Saying the Pledge of Allegiance is promising to be loyal, in this case to the United States of America.

The last part of the pledge gives a brief description of the USA.

• One nation under God—This section was added to the pledge the year I was born, in 1954.  Please note, it does not define whose God: Christian, Hindu, Pagan, Wicca, or whoever; therefore, I default to the First Amendment of the US Constitution to mean whatever God you believe in, including the absence of God.

• Indivisible—the definition of indivisible is unable to be divided or separated. The pledge was introduced after the Civil War. I believe there are entities in our country actively trying to divide and separate Americans today.

• With liberty and justice for all—this one, in my opinion, is the BIGGY. 

Think about it, what does it mean……liberty and justice for ALL.  It doesn’t say for all American citizens, or all white people, or all men, or all women, or all Christians, or all atheists, or all straight people, or all members of the LGBTQ community—it says ALL.

It’s inclusive, sort of like what the “I” stands for in DEI. 

Liberty and Justice for all.

This is what Americans have been pledging their loyalty to their entire lives.

Was it simply lip service? An empty promise? An insincere oath?

It makes sense the Pledge of Allegiance didn’t become a thing until after the Civil War. How can one pledge liberty, which basically means freedom, during a time slavery was legal in this country?

And while America still have a lot of work to do before we fulfill the promise of the pledge, I hold onto the words from the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution: “In order to form a more perfect union.”

America is a work in progress. And we laid out our goals some 250 years ago, and along the way aspired higher, which ended slavery and gave women the right to vote.

In this country, elected officials are required to take an oath of office to “solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

As patriotic Americans, it is our solemn duty to speak out and hold accountable elected officials who violate their oath to office.

American patriotism is not about being loyal to a political party, a politician, and not even to a president, especially if the political party, politician or president is disregarding the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Right applies to everyone in this country, not just citizens.

I suggest you Google the Bill of Rights, review them, and then ask yourself if the current administration has violated any of those rights. If so, that means the president has broken the oath he took when taking the office of president.

Journalists and mainstream media are not breaking laws by speaking out against President Trump. They are doing their duties as journalists and are supposed to be protected under the First Amendment.

Those prisoners sent over to El Salvador—regardless of their crimes—was in violation of their Bill of Rights protections. Non-citizens are supposed to be protected under the U.S. Constitution. Not only were they denied due process, a case can be made that sending them to that infamous hellish prison was cruel and unusual punishment.  

America is not supposed to be emulating Hitler’s policies. My uncles fought in World War II and over 400,000 Americans died in that war, fighting against fascism and the inhumane practices of the Nazi regime. 

Banning books and removing historical and academic information from government websites—that taxpayers already paid for—is a violation of our First Amendment Right.

This Administration making policies on persecuting people—citizens and non-citizens—because they wrote or said something the administration does not agree with or like, is UnAmerican. It blatantly violates the First Amendment.

Claiming you can get rid of birthright citizenship or that you can allow a president to run for a third term through an executive order, or a vote in Congress contradicts the U.S. Constitution. The only way to change either of those would be to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would involve more than an executive order or vote of Congress.

I am an American. I am a Patriot. I am a Daughter of the American Revolution. I believe in the promise of creating a more perfect union. I believe in liberty and justice for all.

I oppose any entity—including government officials—who work in opposition to the U.S. Constitution and seek to deny liberty and justice to all.