Much of the American population has lived in more than one area of the country. In the days of slow trains and scarce money, many people never left the state of their birth. It's hard, nowadays, for a lot of us to be "patriotic" over an entity which has only historical significance. Perhaps that is the reason why so many feel that the electoral college is ready for history.
To go a step further, only the truly backward-looking can be "patriotic" toward the Nation. "My country right or wrong" plays out as simplistic for many of us. Personally, I think of economic issues first when I think of the USA. Perhaps the reason I am so concerned with its present course has a lot to do with the "Almighty Dollar." My standard of living depends upon foreign policy, and it did that before global trade became so invigorated. There are little things. My nice mutual fund used to be run from a Boston bank, and then by a Swiss concern. Now Deutche Bank manages it. Same account. Same rules. Same holdings. It's ridiculous for me to believe that Bush could control inflation (or any other monetary issues) the way Bernard Baruch counselled FDR during WW11.
So! In the Rocky Mountain States, I think of minerals and energy as what changed them. Water wars are still the issue of the region. To glean all the methane gas from eastern Wyoming and Montana, the water table is being depleted. Powder River Basin coal goes along the Burlington tracks at automated speed, only because the states refused to let them slurry it to Texas.
Things are coming full circle in the misguided war department. When a few were talking impeachment during Viet Nam, Earth Day was born. Now, with the current calamity playing out, it's environment rather than dogma which many religious leaders are championing.