> what sense does it make to vote for an unpatriotic politician?

I really dislike the concept of "patriotism". What does it even mean? I think you'll get different answers if you get different people.

If people think that being critical of the US makes someone "unpatriotic", then that's their problem. If that makes a critical politician less electable, so be it. The alternative -- politicians censoring themselves and pretending everything is amazing -- is much worse.

And I'm not sure where the right is coming from anyway. The whole concept of MAGA is that the US kinda sucks right now and Trump is the savior who will fix it. If anyone has been critical of the US, it's been Trump and the MAGA crowd. But of course hypocrisy is never a problem for the right.