Rudy Giuliani, Darrell Issa, and too many other Republicans have spent the last few days spouting about the degree to which President Obama may or may not love his country. Not only is this a waste of time, it is hypocritical and it misses the point.

President Obama’s ideology is inherently critical of America. As a progressive, Obama sees the American founding as a flawed beginning of grievances in desperate need of redress. Rooted in slavery and capitalist greed, the founders sought to oppress those without power. History since has been on a generally upward trajectory in which marginalized minorities have slowly worked their way into the political, social, and economic mainstream. The Constitution, in his mind, is not a document of static ideals that spun out of the liberalism that drenched the era, but a weapon of justice the Supreme Court should wield to enshrine, protect and maximize those minority rights. Internationally, Obama is more of a contemporary progressive, like Jimmy Carter, as opposed to a muscular expansionist like Woodrow Wilson. Obama is cosmopolitan. He views himself, to a degree, as a citizen of the world. Obama thinks America is sometimes too powerful and too influential. Given his view of our founding ideals, he is not necessarily convinced that they are always superior to those found in other cultures. American exceptionalism, if it exists, is due to circumstance as opposed to a superior point of view or a unique providence.

I don’t find the progressive view of America convincing, and one might argue that it is built on an implicit disregard for the things that make America…America. There is some truth in that criticism. But let’s not pretend it is the only political point of view built on America’s faults.

Religious conservatives disavow the current flow of American culture–especially morally and socially. The prevalence of divorce, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, violence, and the institution of gay marriage are, for them, troubling signs of a country without a soul or a conscience or parameters. Continued pressure over cloning, triple-parenting, fetal stem cell therapy, and the specter of polygamy are looming and may portend dramatic changes. For them, the American founding was likely a high point of American development since it was operating within a Christian culture. The Constitution should be understood in light of that context, and not as a document that shifts with cultural trends.

Even economic conservatives are not above the doom and gloom as it relates to spending, debt, the tax structure, and governmental regulation. The debt clock moves inexorably forward and it tolls for our future prosperity. The success of the American form of government hinged on its decision to protect property, and to the extent that our free enterprise system has allowed individuals to pursue their own goals, it has worked. Since the New Deal radically re-oriented the relationship between the citizen and the state, we have seen a decline in individual freedom in economic terms.

For America to become what progressives, religious conservatives, and economic traditionalists think it ought to be, it must change–significantly.

My point is not to compare Obama’s progressivism to other views. I am not trying to equate these competing conceptions either morally or politically. They are crucially different, but their differences reveal an underlying similarity. They all cast a vision for the future and that requires a critique of the surrounding world, even if it is mild and spoken with a smile. Leaders, in order to lead well, critique existing reality and contrast it with the world that could exist if we would but follow them. When Obama does this, the right explodes. When Bush did this, the left exploded.

President Obama has made it pretty clear that he finds elements of America embarrassing and in desperate need of overhaul. On that, President Obama and I are in full agreement. We disagree over the nature of what is embarrassing and how those things might be fixed. Does that mean he loves America less than I do? Honestly, I don’t think so.

Perhaps history will prove me wrong. Perhaps President Obama is a sleeper agent of ISIS. Perhaps he is not even American. Perhaps he will write another memoir, I Hate America, and move to France. Perhaps I am a dupe. We will see.