A man wiser than I, Mr. Dennis Prager, stated something to the effect that should you find yourself in a position wherein you wish to transform or change your spouse, then it is likely that you shouldn't have married them.
We ordinarily fall in love with people for who and how they are not what we imagine they could become. Why is this different with countries?
The claim is that the sincerity of one's professed love for another is in question if you simultaneously profess your desire for that person to change (or transform).
I think that is as a valid a statement as any. The question then becomes if it is a suitable analogy for one's love for one's country? Often enough it is stated that one's love for their country resembles one's love for their mother (Bill Maher posited that that is how conservatives view their country). In fact similes and metaphors abound on how a country is like one's mother.
So now we must ask, is it right to want to change and transform one's mother?
I suppose this is entirely dependent upon one's relationship with one's mother. If the relationship is tumultuous, then one's desire that their mother change would be sound. If one's mother is dysfunctional, it would even be honorable to want one's mother to be functional.
Taking the above analogy to be sound, and stipulating that progressives in power want their country to change we can conclude that progressives view their relationship with their country to be tumultuous and/or that their country is dysfunctional. If not, then why push for change and transformation?
This situation becomes all the more complex if we enter a sibling who's view is that their mother isn't at all dysfunctional and is fine just they way they are (no need for a makeover, costly therapy sessions, or expensive surgery). This gives us a conflict that I think validly projects today's turbulent and polarized political climate.
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