I've heard "not a democracy, a republic" for years. The constitutional design was a republic but that design was badly damaged by amendments allowing the federal government to collect income tax and the electing senators by popular vote.

No intelligent person pretends that the United States is a perfect country that has never done anything wrong. Like most powerful nations, we have interfered in business that was not ours.

Nevertheless, I believe that, until recently, the good history of the USA outweighs the bad, and I don't see how any of that bad history should outweigh my desire to see the best in my country preserved so that my grandchildren will grow up to be proud to be Americans.