Life & Wisdom Quote by John Avlon

Avlon’s line works because it turns a political insult into a diagnostic: not “they’re wrong,” but “they can’t tell categories apart.” Calling someone a “Wingnut” is already a bit of tabloid theater, but the payload is the distinction he draws between loyalty to a party and loyalty to a country. The phrasing “tell-tale sign” frames the problem as behavioral and repeatable, like a symptom you can spot in the wild. It’s not just condemnation; it’s a claim about how extreme partisans think.

The subtext is a warning about how identity politics mutates into moral absolutism. If patriotism is treated as synonymous with partisan alignment, then disagreement stops being a civic argument and becomes a kind of betrayal. That’s the move Avlon is spotlighting: wrapping a faction’s agenda in the flag so it can’t be questioned without implying you hate the nation itself. “Always confuse” is deliberately absolute, less a sociological finding than a rhetorical pressure point, designed to snap the reader into seeing a pattern.

Contextually, Avlon sits in that center-liberal, institutions-matter lane that’s been preoccupied with the collapse of shared norms and the weaponization of national symbols. The quote positions patriotism as something bigger than any campaign, and it chastises those who treat democracy like a team sport. The sting is that it doesn’t accuse “wingnuts” of lacking patriotism; it accuses them of counterfeit patriotism, which is a more damning charge because it suggests they’re hijacking the concept itself.