Everyone looks at the glory of yesterday, but some are much more obsessed with it. It becomes issue when it leads to contradicting the facts, using it to harm others, and preventing yourself from building a better future.

And even besides it, the US is highly backwards-looking. At its best, it's political culture is ossified and enslaved to the predominant opinions of a small group of people who are two centuries dead. (While being oblivious to the fact that within that group, there was a huge spectrum of disagreement on these fundamental questions!)

Pile on a bunch of American Exceptionalism, and you get a perfect thought-terminating cocktail of 'It is this way because it's always been this way and because we are the greatest country in the world.'

These are the cultures that do this most. Pointing to a mythologized and stolen past greatness is a coping mechanism for the insecurities of a flagging present.