I’m a sixty-year-old Italian who loves America. I’ve been following American events for forty years. So far, I’ve been there five times and hope to go back there. I would have gone there more times if I hadn’t always been economically limited.

I like the United States and respect its Constitution. I will always like it, even if I were the only one left in the world. No, America isn’t perfect. It has quite a lot of faults, like any other country. But it certainly has good principles, since it has had the same democratic political system for 249 years, ever since its foundation.

Of course, its 46 presidents (I consider Donald Trump the 45th one, the 47th one will be his successor) have made good and bad things, like any country’s leaders. It’s quite legitimate to criticize American administrations, to put it better, it’s a basic right. But no aversion toward a politician justifies an implacable hatred toward his or her country.

Unfortunately, we know what implacable hatred toward a people as such may cause. So any kind of such hatred should be avoided, because it’s a wrong and dangerous hatred. If you don’t like an American politician, if you don’t like any aspect of the American society, just criticize that.

Nowadays you only have to look at the pages of Facebook (invented by an American) to realize how intolerable boorish anti-Americanism has become. It’s certainly a minority of degenerates, most of whom don’t know a thing about the United States, but because of that we should not underestimate the problem. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Regrettably, such anti-American keyboard lions hardly ever find anyone who contradicts them. Even Americans don’t react a lot: the overwhelming majority of them love their country, but they know it’s far from perfect, and they tend to think it’s legitimate to criticize it.

Well, to criticize it is definitely legitimate. To continuously lash out at it, ask for its destruction and physical elimination of its inhabitants, to insult any dissenting voice, isn’t legitimate at all. Lately, keyboard lions have started pestering even travel agencies and universities who advertise on Facebook, claiming vehemently and often offensively they would never, ever go to the United States as long as Trump is the president.

Apart from the fact that Trump (of whom I’m not a big fan) won the elections democratically, I think it’s silly to refuse to go to a country just because you don’t like its president, since, of course, nobody forces you to have lunch with him. What is more, if you don’t wish to travel or study in a given country, that’s your legitimate choice, but certainly not a reason to shout it from the rooftops and harass travel agencies or universities. Here in Italy (which wouldn’t be free without America), unfortunately, anti-Americanism has always been rife, and ardent anti-Americans have been repeating the same old crap for decades. It’s hard to say anything positive about the United States in this country without being brutally interrupted and insulted. And this sad phenomenon has been amplified by social networks. I think something can be done against all this garbage.

In 1986, I spent most of my stay in the United States with a friend in Minnesota. I told him about strong anti-Americanism in Europe, and this was his answer: “We Americans know that Europeans are envious, but we really don’t care about what they say about us.”

Well, I think the time has come for caring. Not violently, but clearly. Americans should become more determined in contradicting and sending away offensive anti-Americans, and U.S. cultural centers could be created abroad, since too many misconceptions are circulated about America. It’s time to stop turning the other cheek.

Michele San Pietro is an Italian Americanologist. He has been five times to the United States. He's a freelancer who deals with translations. writing, and event planning.

Image: Natecull