Patriots Without Passports: How Nationalism Became the World’s Favorite Travel Sickness

Patriotism, like a cheap lager, travels poorly. What froths patriotically in Cleveland becomes xenophobia in Cologne, and in Caracas it’s merely Wednesday. Yet every government—whether draped in red, saffron, or ironic teal—keeps a cooler of the stuff on permanent ice, ready to pop open whenever tax receipts look thin or the press starts asking why the presidential yacht needs its own postcode.

Start in the United States, where “patriot” has become a lifestyle brand. You can now purchase tactical barbecue tongs emblazoned with eagles that scream in Dolby Surround while grilling hormone-enhanced freedom burgers. The same consumer who swears by the Constitution’s sacred text also believes Section 230 is a new cologne. Across the Atlantic, Brexit’s patriots wave Union Jacks printed in—one checks the label—China, while denouncing globalist conspiracies on smartphones assembled in Shenzhen. Irony, apparently, is a luxury import.

Slide eastward and you’ll find Russia’s patriots marching in columns so perfectly straight they could be used to check if the Kremlin’s parquet is level. Their nationalism is generously subsidized: nothing says “love of motherland” like a state-funded Instagram filter that airbrushes the potholes out of Novosibirsk. Meanwhile, in India, the ruling party’s patriots monitor WhatsApp with the devotion of medieval monks, except the illuminated manuscripts are JPEGs accusing the Mughals of time-traveling to steal the recipe for paneer tikka.

China prefers its patriots pre-installed. Citizens receive a social-credit boost for every foreign insult they report, turning Twitter—blocked at home—into a sort of offshore fishing pond. The catch is always the same: a screenshot of an NBA player liking a Tibetan sunset, followed by a collective gasp so synchronized it could headline the next Olympics opening ceremony.

Smaller nations play the patriot game with fewer props but equal fervor. Hungary’s government mails questionnaires asking whether residents agree that Brussels wants to force gender-neutral paprika on innocent goulash. (Return postage not included.) In Turkey, patriots boycott French yogurt while wearing Adidas—an Ottoman two-step of selective outrage. The Philippines offers “patriotic” troll farms, where love of country is measured in caps-lock density per square inch.

The global marketplace has noticed. Defense contractors hawk “sovereignty solutions” the way Apple flogs wireless earbuds: last year’s model, shinier flag decal. Streaming services green-light nationalist documentaries narrated by the same baritone who once whispered sweet nothings about Scandinavian hygge. Even crypto got in on the act; several altcoins now promise to “decentralize patriotism,” which is venture-capital speak for “rug-pull in progress.”

But the real profit lies in exporting the emotion itself. American talk-radio hosts franchise their outrage to Australian affiliates, who translate “deep state” into “deep sausage” and keep the ratings sizzling. Russian “journalists” coach European populists on lighting techniques that make humble rally footage look like the storming of the Winter Palace, HD remaster. It’s globalization’s cruelest joke: the faster ideas cross borders, the more stubbornly people cling to the notion that theirs is the only flag that doesn’t bleed when washed.

Climate change, naturally, is entering the chat. Pacific island nations—busy measuring sea levels in existential dread—watch industrial giants wrap themselves in patriotic green rhetoric while continuing to mine coal like it’s a national sacrament. The irony is tidal: the higher the ocean rises, the louder the anthems play.

So what binds these disparate patriots together, beyond the shared love of cheap merch? Simple: fear that someone, somewhere, is enjoying the modern world without their particular permission. Whether that someone is a refugee, a rival, or merely a teenager on TikTok lip-syncing to K-pop, the response is universal—raise the drawbridge, crank the anthem, and declare the airspace a no-sarcasm zone.

In the end, patriotism remains the world’s most successful open-source software: endlessly forked, zealously debugged, and always one patch away from bricking the device. International law has yet to invent a firewall against it, perhaps because the people writing the code are too busy compiling their own flags into pop-up ads. Until then, keep your passport handy; you’ll need it to prove which brand of righteous indignation currently qualifies as “home.”