Are Democrats proud of being American? This sounds like a loaded question—who wouldn’t be proud of being American? But according to a new poll, there’s a serious dearth of pride among Democrats about the country. Gallup reports that just 32 percent of Democrats call themselves “extremely proud” of their national identity, compared with 74 percent of Republicans who say the same.
But that makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, President Trump is wildly unpopular among Democrats—and with someone the Democrats consider disgraceful at the head of government, they can be expected to feel ashamed. And by contrast, Republicans only feel proud because Trump is president. After all, weren’t they ashamed when Obama was president?
Actually, the answer is no. When Obama was president, a solid supermajority of Republicans still said they were extremely proud to be American—68 percent in 2016. In 2016, when Obama was president, only 45 percent of Democrats said they were extremely proud to be American. So the massive gap in pride isn’t president-dependent. It’s purely ideological.
And that raises a far more significant question: why are so many Democrats uneasy about expressing pride for their country? It wasn’t always that way. JFK routinely spoke in glowing terms about America—in ringing, patriotic tones that modern Democrats could easily dismiss as jingoistic.
Source: Newsweek
