Here’s what we’re not going to fall for, those of us who are taking the nation’s temperature right now and sensing an infection setting in.

It’s an infection born of intolerance and greed. And if left unchecked and untreated, it could wipe out what’s healthy and functioning and, in so many ways, still growing.

The symptoms look like this:

Threats to drastically cut Social Security.

Legal permanent residents being detained.

The Department of Education being dismantled.

Massive cuts to biomedical research.

Efforts to undermine the marriage rights of same-sex Americans.

Words like equality, Black, gender, inclusion, oppression and LGBTQ flagged or banned from government documents.

A 90% reduction to USAID — long used to stabilize other countries, build alliances and save countless lives around the globe.

Teslas for sale on the White House South Lawn.

Just to name a few.

And when we spot the symptoms and name the symptoms and sound an alarm about the symptoms, we’re being painted as anti-American.

And we’re not going to fall for that.

Because it’s tired. Because it’s not true. Because it’s a distraction from the fact that stocks are crashing and measles are mounting a comeback and proposed Medicaid cuts would leave millions without health care coverage and the secretary of education doesn’t know that IDEA stands for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, but she knows she wants to slash it.

Because dissent and dialogue are baked into the United States — from the First Amendment defending the right to peaceably assemble to the 1989 Supreme Court ruling protecting the right to burn an American flag, if you so desire.

Because democracy is messy.

And because loving a place means looking at it with clear eyes and protecting what’s vulnerable and fixing what’s broken and saving what’s precious and remembering, always, that it’s made of, by and for people whose lives and health and children and hearts are fragile.

But there’s a narrative that the folks criticizing what’s coming out of the White House right now are criticizing America. You saw it when Elon Musk called Sen. Mark Kelly a traitor. You saw it when Musk posted “They hate America” on X earlier this month. You saw it in the Republican talking points after President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on March 4.

It’s baloney.

It’s a thin-skinned attempt to dodge the real issue at hand, which is what we stand to lose on our current crash-and-burn course.

America leads the world in foreign aid. America leads the world in cancer research. Students travel from across the globe to attend American universities. American soldiers have fought and died to defend democracy at home and abroad. American activists have fought and died to defend civil rights, women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights.

But each of those things hang in the balance right now.

America has done so much good, and has so much more good to do. It has also done tremendous harm, including to its own people. The former doesn’t cancel out the latter, and the latter doesn’t cancel out the former. And acknowledging both isn’t an affront. It’s accurate.

America is a set of ideals and a work in progress.

And when our leaders steer us away from our ideals and in the opposite direction of progress, we’re entitled to — obligated to, even — push back.

Not because we hate America.

Because we don’t want to lose what America fought so hard for. Because we don’t want to betray all the people who fought for it. Because we don’t want to lose what they gained. Because we have the resources and knowledge and talent to do so much good. Because we get to imagine a better way and will it into being.

Because our lives and health and children and hearts are fragile. And they’re worthy of protection. And that’s not hate. That’s loyalty. That’s belief. That’s hope. That’s love.

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