American Pride Falls to 25-Year Record Low

America’s 250th birthday party is looking a little awkward. A new Gallup poll says just 33% of U.S. adults feel “extremely proud” to be American, the lowest level Gallup has recorded since it started tracking this in 2001. Even when you add the people who say they are “very proud,” the total only reaches 53%. That is a huge drop from the post-9/11 era, when national pride was sky-high, and the numbers get even messier when politics enters the room: 70% of Republicans say they’re extremely proud, compared with just 14% of Democrats and 28% of independents. Women, young adults, and people of color also saw some of the sharpest declines.

But the real fireworks were in the reactions. One camp basically said, good, maybe blind patriotism is finally going out of fashion, with one commenter dryly joking, “Maybe education levels in USA are rising?” Another took the philosophical route, arguing that pride itself is a vice, not a virtue, and that nationalism has always been a dangerous version of ego. Then came the full doom-scroll energy: one devastated commenter wrote that what has happened to the country leaves them “losing my will to live,” while another flat-out told Republicans to stop complaining because, in their view, they voted for this chaos. And for extra spice, an outsider chimed in to marvel at Americans suddenly acting shocked after carrying “manifest destiny in your pockets.” In other words: the poll was bleak, but the comment section was bleaker, louder, and way more entertaining.