"We can, and should, love America — if by 'America' we mean the people who make it up, our families and neighbors, with whom we share our towns and cities. America is a remarkable place, full of extraordinary people. But if we love America and Americans, then we have to hate the political systems that impoverish, crush, and destroy them every day. To be the friend of one is to be the implacable enemy of the other.
If we love America, then we have to hate the pharmaceutical companies that have flooded the country with opioids, killing our neighbors in the hundreds of thousands; the insurance companies that deny us life-saving medical care; the landlords who charge outrageous rents for shabby apartments full of mold, then kick us out on the street when we’re a day late or a dollar short; the weapons companies that lobby for endless war, always with the understanding that our children will die and not theirs; the gambling companies that are hard at work creating new ways to get our young people addicted to their products; the oil companies that are poisoning our water supplies and slowly cooking our atmosphere, delivering deadly hurricanes and wildfires to our doorstep. In a word, we have to hate capitalism. These are the enemies of America and its people, far more than Iran, or Venezuela, or whoever we’re supposed to be mad at this month.
Donald Trump, Tom Suozzi, and their pet journalists don’t love America. They love capitalism, and they have good reason to, because it’s worked out nicely for them. Before he made the Promise to America, Suozzi was mostly known for trading Palantir stocks while voting on Homeland Security budgets that included Palantir’s contracts; no wonder he enjoys the free market! Trump himself, according to recent reports, has made 22,000 separate stock trades and amassed a personal income of over $2 billion in 2025 alone. These people have a vested interest in telling you, as you struggle to afford groceries each month, that questioning capitalist greed in any way makes you 'un-American.'
But these leaders’ allegiance to capitalism makes a lie of all their other stated principles, especially the ones we associate most with 'America.' Freedom, equality, and the rule of law, for instance. There’s no such thing as freedom when you have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, and all your waking hours belong to your employer. There’s no such thing as equality while people are scavenging for food in America’s dumpsters, and they can watch the world’s first trillionaire launch SpaceX rockets over their heads. And there’s no such thing as the rule of law when billionaires can get away with anything they want, from crypto scams to visits to Epstein’s island. To make Trump’s speech true by inverting its meaning, you can be loyal to the promise of America, or to the reality of capitalism, but you cannot be both...
Today, we find ourselves in a position where every American is technically free, but freedom is only a reality for those who have money. We’re living with skyrocketing homelessness and the threat of death for anyone without health insurance, and we’re being told we hate America if we object. King George has been gone for 250 years, but we’re still under the dominion of King Capital. So it’s our patriotic duty to tear him off his throne, and the socialist movement are the ones working the hardest to do it. 'I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough,' said Eugene Debs of Indiana, more than 100 years ago. He was right too, and there’s nothing more American than getting together and rising up. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise."
- Alex Skopic and Nathan J. Robinson, from "You Can’t Love America Without Hating Capitalism." Current Affairs, 4 July 2026.
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