Patriots are for the people of a nation. Loyalists are for the government of a nation. If the government is good or at least not bad, then the two are almost synonymous. If the government is bad….they have very different meanings. I would take a wild guess and say there are about a hundred million American patriots who regard the people as the nation; “We the People.” There are an undetermined number who regard the present regime as their nation. They believe what most of humankind has for millennia; the people serve the government and it’s minority of rulers. Americans would like to think the government serves it’s people who are in their entirety the rulers.
A hundred million in the streets will make what most Americans would like to think into a reality.
Ice on the Moon 