National pride in the US has declined sharply, Gallup survey finds

Boston Globe

02-07-2025

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Thirty-six percent of Democrats expressed strong pride
in their country in this year's poll, down 26 percentage points from last year
to a new low. Political independents also reached an all-time low, with 53 percent expressing great pride.
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More than two-thirds of Democrats reported great pride in being American in 2017, when President Trump first took office, according to Gallup. That number dipped to 42 percent in 2020.
By contrast, national pride remained high among Republicans at 92 percent, up seven percentage points from last year. 'The only years in which fewer than nine in 10 Republicans were proud were 2016 and 2020 through 2024. All but 2020 were when a Democratic president was in office,' Gallup said.
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The 56 percentage point gap between Republicans and Democrats is at its widest since 2001, when Gallup started surveying national pride.
The new poll was conducted June 2-19, before the US military strikes on nuclear sites in Iran. Gallup says it was conducted through telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,000 adults across the US; the margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points for overall results.
Referencing some of its previous polls, the company said the decline in national pride has come amid waning optimism about the future, widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of the country as well as 'unfavorable images of both parties, and intense partisan rancor during the Trump and Biden administrations.'
'Negative partisanship is a feature of our politics,' said Peter Loge, associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs, via email. 'It says 'I am a Democrat or Republican because the other side is awful.' Rather than agreeing with a party platform, negative partisans disparage people who agree with the other party.'
In the run-up to last year's presidential election, The Washington Post reported that the US has become more polarized than ever,
with more inflammatory rhetoric and anger.
Gallup also said the survey showed clear generational differences, with each successive generation 'less likely than the previous one to say they are extremely or very proud to be an American.'
Less than half of Generation Z (those born after 1996, according to Gallup) — or 41 percent — expressed strong national pride between 2021-2025, while that number was 58 percent among millennials (those born between 1980 and 1996.) Those figures are lower than the 71 percent among Generation X, 75 percent for baby boomers, and 83 percent for the Silent Generation.
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'Despite their greater expression of pride, all generations from millennials through the Silent Generation have shown declines of 10 or more points in the percentages extremely or very proud since 2001-2005. Most of that change has occurred since 2016,' Gallup said.
The generational divide, Loge said, is partly a product of decades of political rhetoric casting the US as a nation in crisis and blaming others for it.
Generation Z, he said, has 'been told by the right that Democrats are anti-American, unpatriotic, and beyond redemption. They have been told by the left that Republicans are anti-American, fascistic, and beyond redemption.'
A poll published by Fox News, also Monday, was somewhat at odds with the Gallup findings. The Fox poll found that the largest number of US voters since 2011 say they are proud of the country. The Republican vs Democrat divide is apparent in this poll as well, with 85 percent of Republicans expressing pride in the US compared with 36 percent of Democrats.