The fallacy is believing the country has ever perfectly embodied the principals of its people. Unlike your and others dismissive talk of my 'bright eyed idealism' I and the people that I interact with fully understand the missteps and failures of our country.
That does not stop us from working towards making the nation a better place. I'm stubborn and loud and I talk to politicians and others when I see things that I don't think are right. Maybe (probably) I'm tilting at windmills. But I'm not giving up on what I think the United States should be.
The fallacy is believing that people have principals. A country is in essence people and the failure of a country is atomically identical to failure in people. When you blame the "country" you are blaming people, aka yourself.
The bright eyed idealism I refer to is the failure to recognize that when you look at your own country you are looking in a mirror.
It's not only that. The type of patriotism that people have in the US is unlike any other. No offense but the only word I can use to describe it is utter arrogance, like the US is a synonym for Utopia and the US is humanities best attempt ever at it. You see patriotism in other countries in the sense that "I love my country" but you don't see it in the sense that "My country is the greatest" like you see with Americans.
I mean to be fair you do get governments who try to get people to think that their country is the greatest but none of the citizenry really buy into it (think: North Korea). But for America, a large number of people literally think America is the greatest and this is what is unique about American patriotism. You embody it.
That does not stop us from working towards making the nation a better place. I'm stubborn and loud and I talk to politicians and others when I see things that I don't think are right. Maybe (probably) I'm tilting at windmills. But I'm not giving up on what I think the United States should be.