“You become what you pretend to be, so be careful what you pretend to be.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

In The Great Patriotic Heist, I argued that the American Left has begun performing patriotism — waving flags, quoting Jefferson, rediscovering “our Republic” — not from love of country but from narrative panic. The populist Right had taken ownership of rebellion, freedom, and 1776’s mythic energy, leaving progressives with a choice: mock it or mimic it. They chose mimicry. My warning then was that performance can’t last forever; it either collapses or becomes real.

This episode asks: what happens if it becomes real — if the actors forget it started as theater?

Sartre’s “bad faith” applies perfectly here. It isn’t lying; it’s self-deception — performing a role so convincingly that you trap yourself inside it. America has done that for centuries. We pretended to be a land of liberty until the pretense began shaping reality. Pretending here is creative, even dangerous. So when the Left wraps itself in patriotic language — “No Kings,” “Our Republic,” flag emojis on bios — it isn’t just PR. It’s ontological trial and error: trying on belief until it fits.

And maybe it will. That’s America’s trick — performance and belief blur until the act becomes identity. The Left may start by faking affection, but the repetition could harden into conviction. The question is what kind of nation that conviction would build.

Think dialectically: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The thesis was the curated moral order of the 2010s — technocratic, globalist, emotionally micromanaged. The antithesis was the populist revolt — a messy fusion of Left and Right embodied in Trumpism. For a brief, volatile moment, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump spoke different dialects of the same rebellion: against expertise, against the soft tyranny of moral management. That was synthesis one — populism as raw authenticity, a revolt against hypocrisy dressed as virtue.

But every revolution becomes self-aware. The movement that began as candor became theater. Its outrage hardened into ritual; its populism into fandom. The Right began mirroring the spectacle it loathed. And that’s when the Left made its move. If authenticity couldn’t sustain itself, it could be domesticated. Patriotism was rebranded for polite society. The institutions that once scorned the Founders began praising them again — provided the “work” never ends. Thus the rise of Progressive Patriotism: corporate, focus-grouped, inclusive, safe.

It looks real but feels like simulation — an algorithm’s impression of love of country. Yet Americans crave sincerity so badly that even counterfeit conviction sells. Pretend long enough, and it might stop being pretend.

If “inclusive patriotism” becomes orthodoxy, it will dominate for a generation — until someone notices that enforced sincerity isn’t sincerity. Then the rebellion resets. Each synthesis ossifies into a new establishment; each establishment breeds its own opposition. The next populists will reject all theater entirely. They won’t wave flags or hashtags. They’ll simply live differently.

That’s the American metabolism: we don’t resolve contradictions; we absorb them. We act first, believe later. We fake it till we make it — or till it breaks us. Pretending isn’t harmless; it’s nation-building. When you play patriot long enough, you forge the country you deserve.

So maybe this new performance will stick. Maybe the Left’s flag-waving feels genuine by 2026. Maybe the fireworks and “inclusive Republic” sermons convince millions that the dream still lives. But belief engineered from above is belief with a leash. And when people start feeling the collar, they’ll tear it off.

That’s America: not thesis or antithesis — perpetual rehearsal.
A country pretending to be free, and somehow, staying that way.