… to the population by saying that if they supported said social movement, they’d be patriots helping their country. So, can those social movements be considered patriotists? (2/2)
I think I see what you mean, but your examples are a bit confusing (who are the “opposition”?) so I’ll use real-world examples, because the broad answer is that A. it’s impossible to separate any set of motivations (like economic ones) from a broader worldview, and B. it usually comes down to how people view the “nation” being appealed to.
So to use a real-world example: it is absolutely the case that the American Revolution began as a protest by certain economic interests (merchants who wanted to sell to the West Indies, farmers who wanted to acquire land out west, propertied people who resented paying increased taxes), but contra the Beards, you can’t reduce the American Revolution just to that, because A. those economic interests had political ideologies of their own that saw British policy not merely as unfavorable but also as illegitimate and tyrannical, and B. the Revolution would never have succeeded if only those interests had backed it – hence the need to fashion broad ideological appeals to try to get the majority of the population to support their movement.
Alternatively, you can look at how the Swedish Social Democratic Party (the SAP) built its majority coalition back in the 1920s and 1930s: initially, the SAP viewed itself as a worker’s party, but also allied with Liberals over issues like voting rights, parliamentary vs. monarchical authority; likewise, the SAP’s alliance with farmers in a bid to become a ruling party outside of a coalition with the Liberals required the formulation of the idea of the nation as the “People’s Home” in which all members of the nation would be treated equally, combining an element of Swedish nationalism with social democratic priorities.