Americans are less proud of the country’s history, its democracy and its military than they were in 2017, according to new polling that lands like a quiet indictment of the whole patriotic script. The AP-NORC poll found pride in the way democracy works in the U.S. has fallen 14 percentage points, from 42% in February 2017 to 28% now. Pride in the armed forces has dropped 19 points since 2017, and pride in U.S. history has declined 14 points. The survey was conducted in April, during a prolonged war that started with the U.S. and Israel launching strikes on Iran and continued as the United States and Iran fought over the Strait of Hormuz.
Who Gets Asked to Salute
The numbers show a country where the official story is losing its grip. Gallup found only 53% of U.S. adults are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American, the lowest reading in a trend that goes back to 2001. That decline runs through most of President Donald Trump’s first term, the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation that fueled backlash against President Joe Biden, and Trump’s return to the White House, where he’s taken more aggressive actions on immigration and issues abroad.
Much of the falling positivity comes from Democrats, who have grown more disenchanted with the country since Trump’s first term. Even so, most U.S. adults still say being an American is “extremely” or “very” important to their identity. The attachment remains. The faith in the machinery behind it is what’s cracking.
Karla Galdamez, a 48-year-old Democrat who used to teach U.S. history, said America has regressed under the Trump administration. She said she’s not proud of Trump, but she is pleased with how far the U.S. has come in 250 years. “It’s a country that really wanted to be different and really wanted to be better,” she said. “Despite some of the very ugly history that we have of segregation and slavery ... if you look at the trajectory of the last 250 years, we’ve done nothing but get better and move toward a more egalitarian nation.”
The Military Gets the Halo
Republicans are much likelier than Democrats or independents to say being an American is “extremely” or “very” important to their personal identity. Only 14% of Democrats and 28% of independents say they are “extremely” proud to be an American, compared with 70% of Republicans. The split is even sharper around the armed forces. About 9 in 10 Republicans say the military makes them “extremely” or “very” proud, compared with about 6 in 10 U.S. adults.
Samantha Fulks, a 40-year-old in San Antonio, Texas, said she’s proud to be an American and doesn’t hide it. The Texas Republican displays that pride with an American flag in her front yard and Trump flags in the back yard, and she plans to wear red, white and blue on the Fourth of July. Fulks comes from a military family, and while she believes the country’s involvement in Iran is unnecessary, she remains a proud supporter of the military. “I still support our troops no matter what they do,” she said.
Matt Stafford, a 39-year-old in Massachusetts, said he’s proud of being an American even if the U.S. political system frustrates him. He has a bald eagle tattooed on his back to represent the United States, its freedoms and “all the things we’re supposed to stand for as a country.” Stafford, a centrist who identifies as “politically homeless,” said he wants Democrats and Republicans to come together to look out for their constituents in middle America. “I love America, but our biggest problem is how we’re pushing both sides — like the left and the right — to the extremes,” he said.
Identity Under Pressure
The poll also shows age and race shaping how people see themselves inside the system. Republicans are much likelier than Democrats or independents to say being an American is “extremely” or “very” important to their personal identity. Younger people are also much less likely than older people to say being an American is highly important to their personal identity. About three-quarters of Americans ages 60 and older say being an American is highly important to them, compared with only about one-third of U.S. adults under 30.
The AP-NORC survey found that the vast majority of Black Americans — 73% — say their race or ethnicity is “extremely” or “very” important to how they see themselves, higher than the share that say that about being an American. Vincent Harris, a 60-year-old in California, said his identity as a Black man rises above other attributes for him because of how Black men are treated in America. “A lot of people are scared of Black men just because we are Black and we are male. And that’s crazy,” he said. “People don’t even take you for who you are as a person; they just look at your race.”
About half of Hispanic Americans say their race or ethnicity is highly important to them, compared with 22% of white Americans. Black and Hispanic adults are also more likely than white adults to say their family’s ancestry or country of origin is highly important to their personal identity.
Harris, who identifies as a gay man, said being an American is “a wonderful thing” because of the freedoms Americans have, despite the obstacles he’s had to overcome. “It’s great to be an American — regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or whatever. As long as you have that freedom of choice as an American, that’s a great thing,” Harris said. “Right now, I wouldn’t live in any other country in the world. I’m here. I love it.”
The official pageant around the 250th anniversary is already trying to bottle up the contradictions. In a USA Today opinion collection tied to the approach of the nation’s 250th anniversary, readers offered sharply different views of America and patriotism. One reader said, “The best things to come out of our history is the defeat of England and Lincoln winning the Civil War. The worst is Trump and how he is defiling our world and country.” Another wrote that the best thing about the United States is that with hard work and a dream, people can succeed at whatever they set their mind to do, while the worst thing is people’s need for social media and the influence it has created on critical issues.
Patricia Bassi of Arizona wrote that the best, or most impactful, thing the United States has done in its 250-year history is President Abraham Lincoln freeing enslaved people, and that having enslaved people is the worst thing the country has done. She said she is very proud to be an American, that her grandfather immigrated legally in the early 1900s and assimilated, and that she feels lucky to be a native-born American. She said patriotism is declining because of social media, artificial intelligence, a lack of motivation in younger generations and the decline of face-to-face social interaction. She also said there is enough to celebrate in the two 250th anniversary events — America250, the official nonpartisan commission established by Congress, and Freedom 250, led by President Donald Trump — and that she’ll try to join a celebration, though it’s really hot where she lives and there’s not much happening in her small town.
Jimmy Waggoner of Colorado wrote that the first 240 years of the country’s existence were pretty outstanding for the most part, but that with the election of Trump in 2016, the government has shown itself to be racist, shortsighted and cruel agitators in world events and no longer the shining light to the world. He said he is not proud to be an American, that there is no more patriotism in the country, and that the people who elected Trump need to apologize to the children of the country. He said he will not watch, attend or acknowledge the festivities and is retiring and taking his money out of the country.
Alex Tran of Illinois wrote that the best thing about the United States is opportunities for everyone regardless of race, gender or age, and that the country played a critical role in saving the world from evil forces such as Nazism, communism and terrorism. He said he is so proud to be an American, that he grew up under a communist regime in Asia and suffered there, and that living in America gives him personal freedom, good education and a decent job. He said he greatly admires the pioneer spirit and work habits of American people and the beauty of the U.S. Constitution, and that America is truly a city upon a hill blessed by God. He said the decline of patriotism is the direct result of the rise of the progressive, woke and far-left movement, supported by corrupted politicians, living-in-the-bubble elites and dishonest corporate news. He said he decorates his house with U.S. flags and patriotic signs and wrote a song titled “Happy 250th Birthday, America.”
Nolan Willis of Alaska wrote that the best thing about America is its foundational principles, rooted in English common law where liberty is supposed to be the default condition of citizens, and that the tradition was strongly informed by the Christian law of liberty. He said the worst thing might be how America treated some Native American groups, including the Trail of Tears and other situations where the U.S. government broke treaties and treated Native Americans as if they were inferior. He said slavery could have been the worst thing, but that it was a structural problem. He said the most systemic abuses were against Native Americans and that some of those abuses continue to present. He also said the United States has saved the world from tyranny at least twice within the past 100 years, including stopping Adolf Hitler, the military advance of the Japanese imperial state and the Soviet Union, and more recently putting a stop to Iran’s advancing capabilities to strike other nations, including places in Europe, with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.
Willis said the worst thing the U.S. might have done is enable oppressive regimes to exist via foreign aid, and that rather than let despotic regimes collapse under their own weight, they continued to remain financially viable. He said he is proud to be an American, that this is his home, and that he has a great deal of appreciation for what America is and what it is supposed to be. He said he is frustrated with the country’s struggles to live up to its own ideals, and quoted Mark Twain: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” He said he separates love of country from love of government, that the founders would have agreed, and that loyalty should be to the nation first and to the government when it serves the nation’s best interests. He said different factions want to weaponize the government to control people they don’t like, which is fundamentally un-American, and that younger people have been indoctrinated into believing that even the best qualities of America do not redeem it because the only thing that matters is its sin.
Willis said the left looks at America’s treatment of Native Americans, the legacy of slavery and systemic environmental neglect and points to those as reasons why America was never great and never can be great because those sins can never be erased or forgiven. He said the religious right views the private choices of individuals through a broadly collectivistic lens and defines America by drug abuse, abortion, feminism, fornication, crime, pornography and materialism. He said both groups focus disproportionately on the negative and neglect the positive, and that neither side seems to grasp freedom, forgiveness or reconciliation. He said he wants the country to be good, that America has a great tradition of generosity, hospitality, concern for others, concern for the environment, concern for general welfare and concern for individual liberty, and that those qualities are being threatened by toxic narratives on all sides. He said the left and the right need a truce, need to work together and permit accommodations for differences, and that if they cannot do that, the country won’t survive. He said, “Forget the billionaires, the Russians, the Chinese or whatever other group of villains. We have been our own worst enemy, and we need to get a handle on that.”
The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.