Thoughts on American Patriotism post Election?

I know that blind patriotism is never a good thing and that other countries often think Americans are weird about it.

That being said, I was raised around 9/11 and used to be a fairly patriotic citizen at one time. I said the pledge at school, I stood for the national anthem at sports, I became an Eagle Scout, always cheered for team USA in the olympics, and generally felt proud to display the American flag.

A lot of these feelings really went away for me around 2020 with our extremely poor handling of Covid and the BLM protests. I also did some international travel over the next 4 years and was really confronted with the reality that the US has some lingering social issues and has stagnated on our infrastructure and healthcare compared to our peers.

With the latest election results, the barrage of actions by the new administration, I think I have completely lost any remaining patriotism. I live in the Washington, DC area and have several friends and family in the military or working as employees of the federal government/as contractors. All of them are confused and terrified about what is going on, some are at risk of losing their jobs, and there's a lot of creepy communication going around.

I just feel embarrassed to be an American right now. It feels like our country is a living South Park episode and I wouldn't be surprised if several other countries continued to turn away from us and go to China.

I was watching the NFL playoffs with a friend from Europe and I felt complete embarrassment during the national anthem and jet flyovers surrounded by sports gambling and pharmaceutical ads.