Why are Americans no longer eager to push patriotism to advance national unity at a time when unity is most needed?
After 9/11, American politicals, including politicians and media, all called for national unity with the rallying cry of patriotism. This was well understood outside of US. Indeed, other nations sympathized and even supported such call for unity with US.
This happened also with WWII after Pearl Harbor. Mass tragedies brings collective sharing of common pain, which allows people to overlook the relatively small differences of politics, which then leads people of all divisions to collectively sacrifice for unity.
WWII saw Americans sacrifice by joining the military to fight, but also saw civilians sacrifice in daily lives, with rationing of almost everything, recycling of metal, blackouts and civilian drills, etc. https://www.ellwoodcityledger.com/33d83086-efab-11e6-b2fe-778204b1867b.html
Compared to that, today’s shelter in place seems relatively tame: plenty of food, can still drive to stores, just stay at home and wait for the pandemic to die down.
Yet after barely 1–2 months, some just can’t take it any more. Even politicians and media are getting antsy to get this over, while the new deaths and infections are still quite high. One would think that it would be one’s patriotic duty to help save the lives of other Americans?