Jan. 6 was a day like no other in U.S. history. And naturally, the gut reaction to such an emotionally charged and traumatic event is to sensationalize certain details. The media, for its part, has been increasingly fixated on the reasoning behind the violent mob attack—and deservedly so—but the problem is that such analysis has led commentators to overlook the most alarming aspect of the calamity: a blind spot in the United States’ national defense strategy. Individuals within the country’s domestic security apparatus have shown they possess some tendency to fall prey to presumptive patriotism—a vulnerability the country’s enemies may well exploit.
Presumptive patriotism—the unquestioned belief that an individual or particular group will behave honorably as a show of patriotism—makes sense if concepts such as honor, fairness, and duty were all uncontested. However, in the United States, these concepts are subject to fierce debate.
