A new poll from Gallup indicates that pride in the United States of America among its citizens has reached an all-time low ahead of the July 4th weekend.
According to CNN, the Gallup poll shows that just 38 percent of American adults described themselves as “extremely” proud to be an American; this number marks the lowest such response for the poll since Gallup first began asking the patriotism question in 2001. Between 2001 and 2015, the number of Americans who said they were “extremely” proud had never fallen below 55 percent.
Republicans still remain the group most likely to say that they are still patriotic, though even that bloc has seen a significant drop in patriotism in recent years. In 2019, the poll showed that 75 percent of Republicans expressed extreme pride in America; in 2022, that number is now down to 58 percent.
Among independents, the number is now down to 34 percent, compared to 41 percent in 2019. Democrats still remain the group with the smallest number of respondents who affirmed pride in America, although their percentage increased slightly over the last three years: 26 percent of Democrats said they were “extremely” proud of America in 2022, compared to 22 percent in 2019.
In its summary of the poll’s findings, Gallup attempted to attribute the record-low responses to a series of major political events over the last several weeks, including “mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, claimed 31 lives including 19 children,” as well as “the U.S. Supreme Court’s highly anticipated and controversial ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.”
However, the overall trend of declining support for American institutions and pride in America itself has been ongoing for several years, even prior to the more chaotic events of recent years such as the race riots in 2020, the widespread allegations of voter fraud that same year, and the controversial coronavirus lockdowns. Gallup showed that, in 2001, 62 percent of Americans held a favorable view of the Supreme Court; in 2022, only 40 percent hold a favorable view of the nation’s highest court, despite a series of widely popular rulings on the Second Amendment and abortion.