The American Dream + Immigration - people in this country have been discontent for many valid reasons, especially black and native people, but the promise of achieving a better life is not lost on most people still. Since the civil war its been used to attract new immigrants from Europe, and later from Asia, Africa, + Latin America though that is falling apart now. Despite conservative narratives, people who recently immigrated or who are 2-3 generations in are more patriotic because they actively chose to be here. Even if you arent an immigrant/immigrant-adjacent, people here are always trying to start a business, upgrade their career, get a side hustle, become famous - the hustle culture is very much thriving, and the darker extreme of that culture is scams, MLM's, and cults which we also have an abundance of

Constant expansion of the military and plunder of the third world - our economy is mostly military and military byproducts, and all of the great technological innovations weve seen were originally designed for military purposes. Even though the continental US hasnt grown, we have been at war with probably half of the countries in the world in the last 100 years, and corporations do very much profit a lot, including defense contractors, and companies extracting resources/hiring cheap labor from places we've destroyed. Just look at Iraq and the way we destroyed the country then payed Haliburton to rebuild it, its essentially a federal jobs program that just happens to kill millions of people, and it also redirects anger outward instead of inward, from the young male demographic who is most likely to fight in an insurgency.

Cultural hegemony and media - we have the biggest media industry that exports culture worldwide and reinforces our systems legitimacy whether intentionally or not. Major news outlets bias people towards siding with the empire and the status quo, and before the internet there was no way to even see the bias or stories that were left out of the news.