"Don't they care?"

To ask this question you must have been listening to our coastal elite these past decades, whose attitudes are global, metropolitan -- part of a meta-culture of sorts -- not really American. Many on this site will share these attitudes and will vehemently disavow the crass morals of their compatriots. They may not know it, but this group you've been talking with are little more than an international sales team, clothed in your values, who we have sent to you to sell America. Some of them have forgotten who we really are.

You bought, so thank you. Now I wish they would tell you the truth. No, we don't care. We don't care about your science, your statistics, or what you think. Where you see a broken system, we see the cost of individualism. Where you see disorganization, we see the necessary checks and balances straining, but holding for now. We are a deplorable people in your view, and we love it.

So you'll laugh at us: please do. You'll consider us fools: good. You'll shun us at every turn: we should have coronavirus every year. You may think American exceptionalism is about being the best. It isn't. It's about standing on our own. And if that road leads through hell, then we'll walk it alone, eyes wide open.