The other day, Fox Newsguy Brit Hume — who you'd think would know better — tweeted that Democrats don't love America. Based on the backlash — some of it presumably from folks whose opinions he respects — he has deleted the tweet and claimed he was misinterpreting a poll that said that a high number of Democrats are not proud of their country at the moment.
At other times when such polls showed a high number of Republicans feeling that way — say, when a Democrat was in the White House — Fox talking heads have spun that as an indicator that the president was doing bad things. And of course, this was the Gallup Poll which they rarely believe on that channel when it tells them something they don't want to believe is so.
If an individual were to say "I hate America" or even "I wish America would go out of business and be replaced by the biggest Walmart in the world" then it would be a fair comment to say that someone hates America — but only then. And it is certainly never true as a blanket statement about millions of people who have expressed no such thoughts. As many a tweet pointed out in response to Mr. Hume, it's a helluva thing to say about Americans who served with honor in the military, lost loved ones or limbs in wars, distinguished themselves in other ways, etc.
It's really an assholish thing to say, right up there with likening someone to Hitler (especially if that person is not committing or advocating mass genocide) or the insistence that God is on the side of your political party. Discourse in this country is sinking low enough without grown men — particularly grown men with vast audiences and great influence — sinking to those levels.