It was huge news when White House Chief of Staff John Kelly appeared before the White House press corps two weeks ago to defend President Donald Trump’s phone call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson.

But Kelly’s most peculiar remarks went largely unnoticed. U.S. soldiers, Kelly said, volunteer even though “there’s nothing in our country anymore that seems to suggest that selfless service to the nation is not only appropriate, but required.” This was, Kelly lamented, because nothing in America is “sacred” anymore, like women or religion. We’ve also, according to Kelly, discarded the “sanctity of life” (i.e., abortion is legal).

In other words, Kelly may love whatever version of America’s past that he has in his mind. But he is not particularly fond of this actual country, today, or Americans themselves (unless they’ve been in the military).

Kelly went on to express similar feelings in his recent Fox News interview when discussing Trump’s call to Myeshia Johnson, which Florida Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson criticized for upsetting Johnson. (Trump told Johnson that her late husband “knew what he was getting into,” and Johnson believed Trump had trouble recalling La David’s name.) Wilson’s statements, Kelly said, made him wonder if “doing anything” for the United States “is worth it anymore.”

Kelly has clearly felt this way for quite some time. In a 2007 speech, he claimed that America has “lost something of quality over the years. … Today, unfortunately, to most it’s about quick gratification, and what’s in it for me. Memorial and Veteran’s Day are more about a day off to take advantage of the big sales at the malls.” Indeed, he said, it’s almost inexplicable why anyone would join the military, given how awful the U.S. is, including the “great pressure from our society to sit it out and not get involved.”

By contrast, the military is an ideal institution that has never lost a war, although it has been stabbed in the back by the terrible people back in America: “When we have lost,” according to Kelly, “we lost at home, and others declared defeat — not us.”

Of course, it’s completely legitimate to criticize the U.S., and it would be truly worthwhile to sit down with Kelly and explore why he feels this way. But an honest discussion wouldn’t go the way he anticipates.

First, Kelly’s perspective is noticeably Marxist. As “The Communist Manifesto” famously claims, under capitalism, “all fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away. … All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” But it’s unlikely Kelly wants to face the reality that much of his anger should be directed at America’s economic system.

Kelly also might be surprised that women did not experience being able to vote, or having credit cards in their own name, or the legal protection from being fired for being pregnant, as being “sacred.” He could also usefully ponder, particularly since he’s from Boston, whether the previous sanctity of the Catholic Church had something to do with priests sexually abusing children for decades with impunity.

And an examination of the most valid part of his bill of indictment – the unconscionable burden our wars place on a small slice of the U.S. population – would be particularly uncomfortable for Kelly. He believes that we are locked in a death match with countless, merciless savages and resents the fact that most young people don’t agree enough to enlist. From a certain angle, this is understandable, especially given the fact that one of his sons was killed in Afghanistan and another is still in the Marines.

But then Kelly should immediately have a talk with both Trump and George W. Bush, who not only haven’t persuaded most Americans of these stakes, but can’t even persuade their own children — every single one of whom has instead chosen the kind of civilian, sybaritic, careless life Kelly finds so distasteful. Kelly might also consider that the Pentagon does not want lots of additional volunteers and loathes the idea of the draft, because the fewer Americans involved in our wars, the freer political hand the generals have to prosecute them.

It may seem like a weird contradiction for Kelly to speak constantly about his devotion to his country, while finding his fellow citizens so detestable. But if you pay attention, you’ll see this kind of worldview is common among the loudest patriots everywhere on earth.