None of your ideas above strike me as original. Maybe I can best answer you by saying that it's my opinion that Americans are too anxious to wave their flag when their president means it to be their battle flag.Okay, fair enough.
I freely admit that how the American people think, and in particular are thinking now, and in double-particular how the patriot base thinks ... is something I still have a long ways to go in learning.
And then ... what makes people change how they think/act?
History teaches us that events are the key. The Declaration of Independence addresses this ...we're disposed to suffer for a long time, etc ... and we see example after example of populations that seem passive, or even devoted to their leaders, or intimidated ... who then, almost overnight, erupt.
What made them do this? What was it that turned a timid student, a passive peasant, an industrial worker striving to get promotion to foreman ... into an angry street-fighter?
Of course the powers-that-be shy away from investigating these huge historic turns. But we shouldn't.
I lived in the Soviet Union for a few months in 1985 .. in Ukrainian Kharkov (now Kharkiv) in fact. And returned there for extended visits several times. I made a number of Russian and Ukrainian friends and acquaintances. They're good people, with a lot in common with Americans. None of us should be shooting at each other.