CBS: American Pride falls to record low, according to Gallup

CBS

This Fourth of July, amid the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, American patriotism has fallen to its lowest point in nearly 20 years. According to a new poll, less than half of Americans are "extremely proud" to be American.

According to Gallup, pride in the U.S. is the lowest it's been since the analytics company first measured it in 2001. The survey shows 70% of U.S. adults are proud to be Americans in the new poll, but just 45% said they are extremely proud.

While most people still say they are proud to be Americans, this marks the second straight year that the number of extremely proud Americans fell below the majority level. Results held relatively steady for years — between 81% and 92% — before sharply falling in 2017 to 75% during President Trump's first year in office.

Democrats' pride consistently measures far lower than that of Republicans, Gallup reports.

Just 22% of Democrats say they are extremely proud to be an American — a 10-point decrease from 2019 and half of what it was before Mr. Trump was elected. However, 76% of Republicans and 41% of Independents say they are extremely proud.

Men expressed their pride in higher percentages than women, at 48% compared to 43%. The most patriotic Americans are people 65 years and older, at 63%, while only 33% of people ages 18-29 reported feeling moderately proud to be American.

In terms of the eight aspects of the U.S. government that Gallup polls on, Americans are most proud of the U.S.' scientific achievements — followed by the military, culture and arts, economics, sporting achievements and diversity in race, ethnicity and religion.

Americans said they are least proud of the country's political system and health and welfare system.

"Record-low American patriotism is the latest casualty of the sharply polarized political climate in the U.S. today," Gallup said. "While neither party group feels proud of the U.S. political system, politics may be affecting Democrats' overall sense of pride in their country more than that of Republicans."

I can't imagine why. /sarcasm

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious"

- Michael Bay movie

Patriotism has been replaced with nationalism. That is not good, by the way.

And quite frankly we don't have anything to be proud about.

We went from a president that took us to two unjust and unnecessary wars and the worst recession in recent memory, to a brilliant president that was held back from doing great things by congress, to another idiot president that mishandled a viral outbreak and led us to yet another recession.

12/20 years has been absolute shit. We've managed to....

• ...become anti-intellectuals, to the point being educated is actually frowned upon by a lot of people.
  • I am college educated but worked as a chef and a couple other blue-collar jobs and the shit I was given for having gone to college was ridiculous. I haven't been teased that much since I was a fat kid in middle school.
  • More people than ever are anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, and moon-landing-deniers, among other things.
• we support a president for reasons other than political policy. For the first time in living memory it was more important to a good chunk of the country to antagonize and work against themselves and others than to work together to make this country great.
• Manufacturing is down. Innovation is down. We are coasting on our residual wealth while losing aspects of what got us there in the first place. We are a service-based economy and I don't think that is sustainable. Education is a joke, buying power is fleeting . Yeah, the US has good universities, but only if you want to be a debt slave until (and beyond) retirement.
  • Graduate high school, go to college, get debt.
  • Buy a house before you finish paying for college, get a mortgage and pay that, too.
  • Buy or lease a car you can't afford.
  • Have a kid, pay for that for 18+ years.
  • Live in debt for the rest of your life and consider yourself lucky if you retire at 65 (instead of 56)
• People are working longer hours, more days per week, and getting paid less for it than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago (adjusted for inflation, of course).
• Suicide rates are up. Mental health disorders, specifically anxiety and depression, are at an all-time high.
• Healthcare is expensive. Sometimes taking care of yourself means bankrupting yourself.
• Wealth gap is increasing, middle class is shrinking.
• Small business ownership is decreasing.
• People generally seem to hate eachother if they disagree over certain things. I've seen best friends and family members (not mine, thank god) grow apart over shit as petty as politics, sexual preference, and religion.
• We still debate things like reproductive rights, civil rights, separation of church and state, and idiotic shit like that we should have moved past decades ago.
• We are no longer progressive, but regressive. "Progressive" has become a dirty word despite the fact it can belong to both sides of the political spectrum.

Ive always been very proud to be American and I love my country 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🗽I dont want to be anywhere else. America is badass, haters gonna hate.

https://youtu.be/Z-IcTaUMbdg

With Trump in charge, standing in my name? I’m more ashamed than I can possibly express.

Well the rest of the world isn't looking at you fondly, that's for sure.

I am not proud to be swedish.

• Much like how anti-intellectualism is rising in the US. There is a rising tide of anti-intellectualism in Sweden. People who believe in ghosts, creatoinism and anti vaxxers. On the bright side, more and more swedes are warming up to nuclear power. That is a win.
• Sweden Democrats are the second biggest party right now, on their way to become the biggest. Rampant anti-intellectualism, racism, sexism, and emotional policy making.
• Our take on COVID 19 is one of the worst in the world.
• Thomas Erikson's woo-woo psychology became huge in 2018. Colour personality types... give me a ****ing break.
• Pewdiepie, nuff said.

Trump has been a massive embarassment for you guys though, I hope you are able to elect him out.

What in particular are you proud of?

I love being an American too but that does not mean I can't be critical or even ashamed of my country.

In the past I've always separated the US from America--one being the government and so on, the other being the people--but even the people are depressing me. On both sides.

I love being an American, however the Trump induced disease and filth have perverted the definition of being an "American".

In their eyes, unless you're an uneducated, brain-dead, racist, pile of rat-shit who sucks at life, you're not a real 'Merican.

@Maroxad: don’t believe in ghosts?

It's not just America, either. Most western nations are currently going through the kind of radical constitutional reassessment we saw in the run-up to the Arab Spring and other assorted national uprisings. The timing's probably just a coincidence though, right?

I don't.

But belief in ghosts is rising.

https://www.thelocal.se/20151030/belief-in-ghosts-rises-in-secular-sweden#:~:text=But%20it%20seems%20that%20more,to%2016%20percent%20since%202008.

Im extremely EMBARRASSED to be an American right now. Trump will be our down fall

You can be critical if you want that's fine, but i love my country and i know i'm blessed to have been born here. I love America. I'm not ashamed at all, i'm proud. That doesn't mean i believe everything that has happened in the past was good tho! obviously things like discrimination and slavery existed, but you would be hard pressed to find any country that doesn't have a dark past, especially if you go back to the 1500s 1600s 1700s, 1800s, those times were very dark, they didn't even have electricity *wink*. Democracy wasn't even a thing in the world. But regardless how you feel about that past, this country is a power house of people from all over the world who built up a country that would do amazing things, from music to technology to a revolutionary style of governing, there is plenty to be proud of America for. To see this country accomplish what it has in under 250 years is truly amazing. I love the USA.

Maybe time for more Pride parades. Burn some American flags together on the 4th of July.

You're seeing radical constitutional reassessment. I see the people getting ready to kill each other because of extremist groups stirring things up until they snap.

Not ashamed but embarrassed with this current administration and the apologists for said administration. I think the GOP has run it's course and we need a new party/parties. The trump base is indefensible. The fact that he violates norms and breaks laws and yet the law and order party is okay with this is disgusting. I cannot and will not defend a president that violates the Constitution.

My thoughts on Patriotism.

I blame the media - especially mainstream media. They’ve whipped up millions into a frenzy just because their preferred party isn’t in the White House. What’s the point of a democracy if your team won every time? You’re supposed to suck it up and hope for the best in your leader. That’s the way it’s always been pre George Bush Jr. Jeff Zucker (CNN boss) has had a personal vendetta against Trump since The Apprentice days and decides to use his network as a hit squad. Other media follow suit because ratings.

There is nothing wrong with loving America. It’s the greatest country on earth.

Fox News did not have anything against Obama???

@horgen: I’m assuming this is a reply to my comments above so I’ll answer.

I did say mainstream media and Fox News falls into that category.

Some instances of terrorism? Those are already happening. But any actual civil war? That would just be ridiculous, right now no political ideology group has anywhere near the political, social and financial capital for any large scale conflict to happen.

As much as some want that to happen...

@Sevenizz: Maybe Trump gets a lot of bad mainstream press because he's terrible.

@mattbbpl: If you only watch left leaning mainstream media, I wouldn’t doubt you feel that way.

But I wholeheartedly disagree. I search for more accurate and unbiased media.

Lol.

Definitely not the greatest country on earth...

I like your outlook and tbh I gave Trump a chance, I wasn't too keen on Clinton so I think I was more willing than most. Similar to Trump voters, I thought the whole non-politician/outsider thing might actually be worth something, even if I did not buy the notion entirely. But the dude is a constant source of disappointment.

As far as the media, yeah they are all pretty terrible, on both sides. I wish they'd be more objective and fair in their criticism instead of frothing at the mouth and going "You'll never guess what Trump did today!" over every little thing. Likewise, I wish FOX News and other conservative outlets were not so sycophantic.

I agree though, what's the point of democracy if you get the same party every time. I just wish that the alternatives were not so despairingly inept. It'd be nice to think "Hey, even if the folks I vote for lose, the country is still in good hands" but that is not the case.

Maybe some day we will see the GOP return to it's core values, the world needs more common-sense conservatives. I think they all disappeared when McCain died, tbh.

Hard to have pride when the only thing we're #1 at anymore is being jackasses.

I read from a wide variety of sites...….and he's terrible. Why do you think many Republicans are jumping ship?

Oh, I don't know. America's leading the world at self-flaggellation of late.

Almost every wester culture and the reason is simple: when all the moms and grannys, who already believed in all this woo to beging with, started using social media (FB in particular) and found the anti-science circlejerk communities where they were free to "validate" their idiotic views, was the time anti-inletectualism started to spread like the wildfires in Australia. When you already have anti-science bias and find a shit on of people just like you on social media, you are bound to become even more set in your ways and prone to spread the nonsense to the rest of your connected social group.

You need financial capital to start a civil war? A lot of them triggered through poverty. What you need most of all is two groups of people who despise each other. Enough that they can't talk anymore. Enough that they twist everything the other side does into something negative. The idea of bad faith? Because then you have a downward spiral that you can't escape from. We can thank the media for that part.

I think they're close to one. Because there's no end to it. Innocents keep getting insulted and called racist, losing their jobs and the Americans stay quiet for the most part. I've seen that before. It's like tightening a spring. It's impossible that there isn't a lot of dissatisfaction about how things are portrayed, how unfairly people are treated by the self-proclaimed 'virtuous'. But this is the thing: you don't see them being angry about it. Sure, you see me being all sorts of angry about it, but I'm not American. I believe that the contrast between the dissatisfaction and the reaction has become enormous. And I think that's dangerous. There will be a reaction to all the injustice, but instead of it happening now it's accumulating. And if it doesn't stop, and I don't see why it would, it's inevitably reaching a bursting point at some point.

And the ones who spin this spiral don't even know how far it's gone. When I remind people of things like the inability of American men to date women right now because of the intricacies of consent, they're like 'oh yeah that is also happening.' Yes, that's also happening. It keeps adding up. There's no release of pressure, you see?

I've always said that war knows only losers. I'm not in favor of it. I spent many hours, probably thousands, trying to help prevent the polarisation happening in the USA. Hey I just lost someone real dear to me yesterday. I don't want anyone to go through that because it sucks. The emptiness stings. Especially the little things where you expect to see her and you don't. But how is it going to be avoided? Is the far left going to start talking to people instead of hunting people down? Are we going to see the main social media platforms suddenly open up to discussion or ban people for saying nazi as well as ********? Is the mainstream media going to suddenly care about the truth? I'm not so sure of that.

And my biggest concern isn't a civil war in the USA itself. It's what it could do to other tensions like China and south east Asia, Turkey and Europe, and so on. Even more than loss of life, a US civil war could mean a loss of freedom for people around the planet, not just in the USA.

@KungfuKitten: Americans stay quite when you have far right ideologically motivated mass shootings, why would they react to people being called bad names?

You VERY much do need financial capital for civil war. Supplies, Transportation, Logistics aren't cheap you know. The financial capital doesnt need to come from you though, it can come from any keys supporting you. Nobody is willing to go to war knowing that they have a 0% chance of winning. Right now, as far as the US is concerned, as well as any other nation in the western world, the far right extremists have no real financial capital, most of them are failures who are either NEETs or have low paying jobs. There are a few people who make a decent living, but their capital is not enough, nor do I see the alt-right being able to get enough financial support from their supporting keys. Politics is all about the keys, and any attempt at an uprising, would be quickly quelled.

The alt-right love playing victims, but most people aren't falling for it. That is why so few are willing to speak up for them. Because they are not victims. Only the guillible they fool. With the exception of Cancel Culture, I can't think of them being done wrong against. But the only way to counter cancel culture would be through moderation.

That said, I am sorry for your loss.

The only probable cause for a civil war I could imagine would be if Trump refuses to leave after he doesnt get re-elected. But even there the causes are slim, and any confederates will be quickly quelled out by america's oversized military.

So it's just the alt-right playing victims. It's just bad names. Alright. Let's keep the lies going.

Was UCLA professor Gordon Klein an alt-rightist too? They asked him to 'leniently' grade black students because of George Floyd. Undermine the academic process based on students sharing a color of skin. Pulling people ahead because of the color of their skin, something that would be and SHOULD be illegal in any first world country. He said he wouldn't even know how to do it. What to do for example with people of mixed race? Easy solution: He is a racist now. Right? He opposed the mob. So now he is considered alt-right. He has been righteously suspended by your cause. Congratulations for this great justice. I'm sure the average American is grateful for you showing them alt-rightists their place. It's the nteenth example of the great American purge waiting for us all.

More like an American day of reckless fireworks

90% of what you just said are things that happened in the past. Exactly, right now. July, 2020. What are you proud about?

I'm not sure what your point is. So a few inane people made a mistake, hence everyone in the left-wing thinks the same about the professor?

I can also give you plenty of examples where black people are actually treated unjustly.

I agreed with your first part, but you reminded me what's the issue with the US right now. People aren't even attempting to be objective, which could be why we're in this mess. There are leftists mobs and right mobs but everyone pins the action of some as the bigger picture.

@Sevenizz:

You just described Fox News does every time there's a democrat in the White House.

Also, America is NOT the greatest country on earth, I can't explain how toxic that mentality is, we should be able to at and admit our faults and be better, to claim we are the greatest or perfect is not the way to be

Yes it was a mistake made by 20,000 people signing to suspend him and the university ultimately doing it. A mistake happening everywhere right now. Just a mistake. Just bad words. Just the alt-right.

When people called the driver on the Interstate-5 a white supremacist that was just a mistake, right? 'Targeted' two BLM supporting women with his car. Well he was easy to find. Turned out he didn't have the right skin color for the story. A black man targeting two white women? Oops. At least they could still call the car white. Got to get white in there somehow.

And that suspension might be lifted. It does suck that it happened.

How many people were those who accused? Whackos do exist, but asserting someone is racist isn't going to bring people to a goddamn civil war, nor is it persecution. Unless some people are bigger thin-skinned snowflakes than I already thought they were.

And this bolded part is a SHINING example of a persecution complex. Not saying you necessarily believe in that. But I have seen a lot imbeciles try to use that argument.

It might be. Only 20,000 mistakes. It all adds up though, doesn't it. He's not the only one thrown out at the whim of the mob. And some of them are less fortunate. But hey, they're alt-rightists right? Do you recognise this lady?

Does she look alt-right to you? Maybe an upcoming white supremacist? There is a little hate symbol in the upper left of the picture. I don't know at what age we can start identifying their corruption. Is 8 years too young to tell? She made the error of getting into a car with her mother and I believe a friend of her father. They accidentally drove into an armed safe space set up on a parking lot near the BLM protests and in the words of the crying mother they: "didn't even get no time to make a u-turn." Shot dead in her back. Maybe that was also a little mistake. Hey George Floyd would understand. This is bigger than her.

Is this a prelude of what we can expect if Biden gets into the white house? A reckoning of alt-right? Armed black militia asking for reparations to people who have too bright a skin color? "They're not robbing anyone at gunpoint they're just armed and asking for money."

@KungfuKitten said:

It might be. Only 20,000 mistakes. It all adds up though, doesn't it. He's not the only one thrown out at the whim of the mob. And some of them are less fortunate. But hey, they're alt-rightists right? Do you recognise this lady?

Does she look alt-right to you? Maybe an upcoming white supremacist? There is a little hate symbol in the upper left of the picture. I don't know at what age we can start purifying the Americans. Is 8 years too young to tell? She made the error of getting into a car with her mother and I believe a friend of her father. They accidentally drove into an armed safe space set up on a parking lot near the BLM protests and in the words of the crying mother they: "didn't even get no time to make a u-turn." Shot dead in her back. Maybe that was also a little mistake. Hey George Floyd would understand. This is bigger than her.

Is this a prelude of what we can expect if Biden gets into the white house? A reckoning of alt-right? Armed black militia asking for reparations to people who have too bright a skin color? "They're not robbing anyone at gunpoint they're just armed and asking for money."

What the hell are you on about? Are you trolling at this point?

No one is saying anything about the people you bring up being alt-righters in your little chewbacca defense.

YOu have derailed this conversation too much, with far too many strawmen, and loaded statements. I have no idea what the conversation is about any longer.

Seriously, nothing we have seen here even remotedly compares to the ACTUAL persecution that happened during McCarthyism. And even that did not even come close to leading us to a civil war.

@Maroxad said:

@KungfuKitten said:

It might be. Only 20,000 mistakes. It all adds up though, doesn't it. He's not the only one thrown out at the whim of the mob. And some of them are less fortunate. But hey, they're alt-rightists right? Do you recognise this lady?

Does she look alt-right to you? Maybe an upcoming white supremacist? There is a little hate symbol in the upper left of the picture. I don't know at what age we can start purifying the Americans. Is 8 years too young to tell? She made the error of getting into a car with her mother and I believe a friend of her father. They accidentally drove into an armed safe space set up on a parking lot near the BLM protests and in the words of the crying mother they: "didn't even get no time to make a u-turn." Shot dead in her back. Maybe that was also a little mistake. Hey George Floyd would understand. This is bigger than her.

Is this a prelude of what we can expect if Biden gets into the white house? A reckoning of alt-right? Armed black militia asking for reparations to people who have too bright a skin color? "They're not robbing anyone at gunpoint they're just armed and asking for money."

What the hell are you on about? Are you trolling at this point?

No one is saying anything about the people you bring up being alt-righters in your little chewbacca defense.

YOu have derailed this conversation too much, with far too many strawmen, and loaded statements. I have no interest in continuing.

Hey you are the person saying that it's just alt-right wing playing victims. It's all just mistakes. I had enough of those lies. Laying down facts is not setting up a strawman. I'm asking you, what do you think Americans think of our cause? You think they're not getting a little angry? Because they can't talk about their anger in most places, do you think it's just not there?

Do you know the 14 and 16 years old shot at Chaz or Chop? They were joyriding a Jeep Cherokee SUV to the peaceful Chaz. Were they alt-right you think? Allegedly they had been robbing people with knives and shooting, drive by shootings at Chaz. Sounds alt-right doesn't it? Well they happen to be black. I mention that because some people care. They were hit by Chaz security. 10 minutes of sustained little mistakes fired upon that car. Actual police arrived. You know what they found? No weapons in that car. But Chaz was cheering on Twitter. They beat the fascists! Congratulations.

I'm just disagreeing ok. I don't have anything against you as a person. In fact I respect you as a person. But I don't think it's mistakes and I don't think it's alt-right. There's a lot of normal people getting killed or silenced or harassed by this group of people who think they're so virtuous. And it really upsets me. It's the constant lies and loss. And it does happen on both sides I know that. It's just not the racists that are being attacked.

NO ONE was talking about these people. I was specifically talking about the alt-right.

No, you are trolling, and now you are flooding it with more disingenous arguments. Just because there are some legit cases of potential cancel culture and political shaming (no one is pretending this isn't a problem). Doesn't delegitimize the issue that the alt-right have an issue of playing the victim.

Next time, don't put words in people's mouths, it makes you look really silly. Ever heard of the Great Replacement Theory? It is specifically stuff like that I was referring to when I was talking about the alt-right playing victims. That or how they are censored, when they get deplatformed off private platforms even though they BROKE the websites Terms of Use that they AGREED to when signing up on the site, in addition to being free to speak out at other platforms. Or how they assert Universities exclusively censor right wingers even though left wing speech is more likely to be deplatformed. Or how they assert that Society is discriminating against whites and how everyone else is priviledged.

OK sure. It was already pretty tough to find an alt-rightist online but I'm sure they have been complaining about being deplatformed. I rather have them talking than have them silenced and doing who knows what. But whatever. I think they're nuts. At least we can agree on that, right?

I agree, they should have the right to speak. But they are not victims.

Being swedish, I am a magnet for these kinds of people. If I speak swedish, or say I am swedish, it isn't all too uncommon for one of these alt-righters to jump on me. I know they are alt-right as I recognize their rhetoric, their narrative, their tactics.

It even happened TWICE on this board xD

Why I tend to never say certain things about myself...

It's hard to show much pride for a nation that is filled with ignorant, racist, conspiracy theorists, standing behind our 'Grifter in Chief'. Look no further than our inability to wear a simple piece of cloth over our face while tens of thousands of us die. Bunch of selfish morons.