Tangle - SPECIAL EDITION: Isaac shares his love for America

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Isaac shares his love for America. You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Roll Sale. Sometimes, when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose. Maybe it's a little too flimsy. Or maybe it's a little too covered in dirt because your best friend distracted you when you dropped it on the ground. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect. The Pre-Roll. Shop the Summer Pre-Roll and Infuse Pre-Roll Sale today at always perfect. The pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infuse pre-roll sale today at ocs.ca and participating retailers.

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now on Audible. A record low 58% of US adults now say that they are extremely 41% or very 17% proud to be an American. I've been thinking a lot these days about my pride in America, more to the point about whether I actually love America. I tell myself that I do and I tell other people that I do too. In my chest, I want to say it and I do say it. Yes, I love America. I love my country.

America is my home and there is virtue in being proud of the place where you live. If I close my eyes and I think about America, I first imagine all the places that I've lived, that I love, that I've called home. I think of the neighborhood I live in now in Philadelphia, the working class, side by side with the white collar newcomers, side by side with the white collar newcomers,

side by side with the sports obsessed lunatics who love this place with a destructive passion and an unconditional fervor. I think of New York City where I spent nearly a decade and the way everyone in the city seems to be in this perpetual battle together against the minor injustices around us. A subway car's broken air conditioning, a double parked Mack truck, a crowded sidewalk.

I think of how we all unified, scowling at the city, a hearty laugh at the absurdities just beneath the surface. I think of the rural West Texas desert where I cut my teeth in the summers as a teenager and just finished building a house last year. I think of the bays of Cape Cod where I learned to love cold ocean water and fresh seafood and the rocking deck of a boat as a young boy. I think of the immeasurable beauty of the Grand Tetons or the Pittsburgh winters or Southern California in the fall or Seattle in the summer, New Orleans anytime and the way Idaho looks like this scene out of the land before time, just waiting for a dinosaur to lurch around the corner.

There is so much that I love about America that I have no other answer than to say, well, yes, I do love this country. I love the fresh cut grass of a minor league baseball outfield and the warm bun of a hot dog in my hand. I love big trucks and electric cars and good medicine and cheap technology. I love seeing our athletes dominate all the Olympic events. I love being able to write that the president or the governor or my local city council representative is an idiot when they've been acting like an idiot

and then sleeping soundly without fear of repercussions. Sometimes I love being loud and bombastic for the sake of being loud and bombastic and being accepted as such because it's America. I love redemption and few countries celebrate redemption as America does. I love a society that insists on telling each other our grand dreams are within reach,

that all you need is some hard work and a little luck and a good idea, even if it's not always true or the reality for all people. I love the convenience of traversing state lines where food and laws and culture change as if you've entered a new country, yet we share a common language. Some days I love being gluttonous

and I love that this country makes it easy. I love the dumb slang these dumb American teenagers are using these days. I love a cold shitty these dumb American teenagers are using these days. I love a cold shitty beer at the end of a long day of work, and America specializes in both shitty beer and long work days. Man, I love the sports and the entertainment. I love the NBA and the NFL, a crowded stadium of drunk and rowdy fans, or the way my heart rate goes up when a new highly anticipated movie trailer is released. I hate Hollywood with a love that I can't explain.

This tacky, cheesy, ritzy, awful, imaginative place that people cross oceans and countries to come to just so they can tell their story. Just so we can watch it on a giant screen and talk about how beautiful or boring or meaningful it really was. Do I love democracy and freedom and individual rights and the pursuit of improving and expanding at all? Hell yeah, I do.

But how many of these things are unique to us? How much of this is America? What about those things that make America, America, but in a bad way? Do I love prisons? That voice in a bad way? Do I love prisons? That voice in my head asks. Do I love obesity? Do I love gun violence? Do I love addiction and depression and loneliness

and expensive healthcare to treat it all? Do I love ideals that people want to quote or put on placards or keep in their email signatures, but can't live up to in practice? Do I love our floundering schools? Or the fact nearly half our country doesn't vote? Or the way we demand you must love this place to live in it?

If I'm honest with myself, if I'm really honest with myself, I love America for some of the same reasons other people hate it. Sometimes I like sticking my chest out and thumping it. Sometimes I feel a little tinge of pride when I read that we've threatened another country that has been threatening others with our military might and the threat has worked.

I like feeling safe and strong and big and in control. I love being important. I love that my ancestors built this important thing. I love that even if you hate America, you care about it. That we matter, that our country has influence and control and sets the standard. Even with our leaders as corruptible and spineless as they can sometimes be,

I'm often glad it isn't the other people running the show. Shoot, I even love the guns. Not in schools or in the streets or in the hands of abusers, but yeah, I sure do love hearing the crack of a rifle echo across the land, watching the spoons spin or the can flop or the milk jug explode. And I love the notion of self-protection and independence infused into so much Second Amendment culture.

Do I love America because it's mine? Is that it? Is my love unconditional, as it is with friends or family? I've known my whole life. I think about the things I hate about this country, the injustices, the partisanship, the conspiracies, the hackery, the materialism, the way simple, scared, angry people have gotten so good at climbing to the top.

And I wonder, isn't that enough not to love this country? I think about my predecessors answered the question. John Lewis, however you feel about his politics and my feelings are mixed. He loved this country even though it beat him for asking for a vote, even though it treated him like less than a man, even though it dragged him through the streets

for the crime of struggling for equality. When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, he said, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind brothers and sisters

and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide. John Lewis said that in his final piece of writing, who am I not to love this country when John Lewis did? I remember the first few months that I lived in New York City. There was something about it that was so different from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Jerusalem

or any other big city I'd spent a lot of time in. There was the obvious, everything was on your block, grocery store, bank, liquor store, park, laundromat, restaurants, bars, hoards of people unlike any eat seat and elsewhere. You could walk to it all and soak it all in. But there was something else too. There was this way people walked with each other. This silent unified front against the beast of the city that you could not see.

Sometimes New York City just slaps you in the face, I once told a group of my friends. And everyone laughs because they knew exactly what I meant. The city, it has this personality, a being, an energy, this symphony of smells and sounds and characters and tastes and barely functioning things your taxes are paying for. Sometimes New York hands you the best night of your life, out of the blue, for no particular reason,

just by virtue of you opening your heart to it. And sometimes it slaps you in the face. I often think of America as the New York city of the world. It's the best country on the planet, but it smells like piss and nothing really works out as supposed to. As I sit here thinking about this country, its partisan rancor, rising political violence,

exportation of militarism across the globe, and often not functioning Congress, I can see why so many people struggle to feel love of country right now. But the visibility of these flaws, the ability not just to discuss them openly but also elicit change and try to fix them, that is the fundamentally American project.

We are a sometimes great, sometimes loathsome, eternally imperfect nation built on a set of ideas that are so fundamentally superior to anything else civilization has come up with that they've been copied and pasted across the globe. And when you spend time in this place and when you view it with fresh eyes, it's impossible to ignore how beautifully we've built the country to fit the needs, wants, and desires of so many. Ski or swim, hard work or laziness, religious zealotry or rabid atheism,

blue or red or purple or mad and not paying attention, cheese steaks are the tastiest Nigerian food west of Nigeria. I once counted six languages on a 30 minute commute to work in New York City, and I once stopped at a peach stand in Mississippi, and I couldn't understand the English that was being spoken to me by the American owner.

This is America. And maybe this is just the story I tell myself because this is my home, but it's a story I love. It's a story of love. Do I love America? Shoot, I think so. I care for it. I want it to be good and fair and just and kind

and confident and strong and welcoming and capable of brute force strength whenever the calling comes. I don't mind if it slaps me around every now and then, but I'd love if it could just function a little bit better, avoid a few more wars, and allow us to share our reality and lean on wisdom and look to evidence and treasure our elderly and be forgiving and fair and nice to our children, even if just a little more than we are. I've been thinking a lot about whether I love America and on this Independence Day, I want to.

I do. I love America, I tell myself. I think I do. I think I always might. All right, that is it for today's show. Quick heads up that if you enjoyed this essay, we write and publish stuff like this all the time on our newsletter, our podcast, our YouTube channel. The best way to keep up with what we're doing is to go to readtangle.com, sign

up for our newsletter. And of course, if you want to support our work, you can go to readtangle.com forward slash membership, become a member to keep independent media news like this going. I would very much appreciate it. And I will see you for the next one. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul. And our executive producer is John Lull. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor, Will Kavak and associate editors, Hunter Kaspersen, Audrey Morehead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Knuth, and

Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Dyett75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle.com. What matters most to you? Is it unforgettable adventures? Connections with lifelong friends? Peaceful moments of reflection? Feelings of joy and freedom you can't wait to experience again and again?

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feel as calm as a day spent on the beach in Cuba. for what matters most. And if you find a better rate, we'll beat it. There's really no better way to start your happy travels. Contact a travel expert or visit SELLOUTVACATIONS.COM This episode is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Roll Sale. Sometimes when you roll your own joint, things can turn out a little differently than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose, maybe it's a little too flimsy, or maybe it's a little too covered in dirt because your best friend distracted you when you dropped it on the ground. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect. The pre-roll.

Shop the Summer Pre-Roll and Infuse Pre-Roll Sale today at ocs.ca and participating retailers.