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Commentary

Poll: National Pride Is at an All-Time Low

July 5, 2025

Independence Day is a day typically celebrated with a deep sense of patriotism and appreciation for America.

In a letter to Abigail Adams about the Fourth of July, Founding Father John Adams wrote,

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more. You will think me transported with enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

However, ostensibly not all Americans will be swelling with pride this Fourth of July. A recent Gallup poll shows a precipitous decline in American patriotism over the last few years. Of Americans surveyed for 2025, only 58% claimed to be either “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American. The figure shows a 9% drop from last year and is 36% lower than the all-time high of 91% of respondents who were “extremely” or “very” proud to be Americans back in 2002 and 2004.

The study illustrates the decline as far more prevalent among Democrats. American pride has eclipsed 90% only once for Democrats since the commencement of the Gallup poll in 2001. This year the number sat at an abysmal 36%, a record low. On the flip side of the coin, at least 90% of Republicans have professed to be “extremely” or “very proud” of being American in all but five years. Even with the number falling below 90% during the years 2016 and 2020 to 2024, the number never dropped below 84%.

Party lines aren’t the only variable where a sharp divide is seen. One’s generation is also a leading indicator of how likely they are to be proud to be American. The poll shows a decline in patriotism in each generation with only 41% of Generation Z (born between 1997-2012) exhibiting high levels of national pride. With each younger age group, the number of patriotic Americans becomes slimmer and slimmer.

Conservatives have been warning of anti-American sentiments arising in the younger generations for decades. Even in 1951, William F. Buckley Jr’s book “God and Man at Yale” cautioned the public of the indoctrination taking place on college campuses. According to Buckley and other conservatives, each ensuing generation is becoming more and more inculcated with unpatriotic values and ideologies.

A 2024 SSRS Poll discovered something similar to Gallup. Reportedly 86% of Republicans believe that patriotism has a positive impact on the United States with only 4% believing the impact to be negative. Conversely, only 45% of Democrats view the impact as positive with 37% believing it to be negative. So, most Democrats not only aren’t proud of their country, but they also think it is a harmful to be proud of one’s nation.

Evidently, many Democratic voters subscribe to the idea of patriotism being wrong, but some leaders of the Democratic Party are even more radical. Recently, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) claimed the U.S. is “one of the worst countries.” A lack of national loyalty and pride is rapidly devolving into an abhorrence for the country.

Nationalism and patriotism are on life support, particularly for Democrats and the younger generations. Will Americans pull the plug on American pride once and for all, or will we nurture it back to health where Americans are once again grateful to live in this republic?

Americans have much to be thankful for and consequently proud of. After all, this Fourth of July we celebrate our Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of England with our principles being chronicled in that declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Those rights, consecrated by our creed, and guaranteed by our Constitution are a gift from God. The U.S. has the longest standing Constitution in the world today and we get to live in this wonderful land of opportunity. We, the blessed few, less than 5% of the world population according to Worldometer, have much to be proud of this Fourth of July.



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