A Gallup survey found that only 17 percent of American adults described themselves as 'very proud' of their country last year, the lowest number in the poll's 25-year history. A Wyoming Republican immediately took to the House floor to explain that this is, somehow, the left's fault. The current president, the one actually running the country, did not come up.
The Number Is Actually Staggering
Let's sit with this for a second. Gallup has been asking Americans about national pride since the early 2000s. For most of that time, the 'very proud' number hovered comfortably above 50 percent. Last year it hit 17. Less than one in five Americans looked at this country and said, yes, very proud, extremely proud, proud with enthusiasm.
For context, 17 percent is roughly the share of Americans who believe in Bigfoot. It is lower than the approval rating of Congress, which takes genuine effort to achieve. This is not a blip. This is a floor collapsing.
The Gallup data, as reported by Fox News, also shows a 26-point collapse among Democrats specifically, dropping from 62 percent the year prior to just 36 percent. Independents fell seven points to 53 percent. Republicans held firm at 92 percent, which, given what the Republican Party has spent the last decade doing to democratic institutions, is its own kind of data point.
Enter Harriet Hageman, With an Explanation That Asks Nothing of Herself
Rep. Harriet Hageman, Republican of Wyoming, delivered a floor speech this week diagnosing the problem. Her conclusion, roughly: the left did this. Specifically, Democrats and their embrace of the 1619 Project, which reframes American history around the institution of slavery rather than the 1776 founding. 'The left reveres 1619 as the year of America's true founding,' Hageman said. 'The year the first slaves were imported to America has become the defining moment for a new generation of cultural revolutionaries hellbent to tear our society apart.'
This is a very tidy theory. It places all blame on an academic framework that most Americans have never read and cannot name, and zero blame on, say, the sitting president using the military as a backdrop for UFC fights on the White House lawn, or the systematic dismantling of federal agencies, or the ongoing project of telling large chunks of the American public they are enemies of the state.
Hageman's speech argues that America has 'a distinct cultural identity that merits preservation' and that immigrants should be welcomed to 'partake in and succeed in the American way of life' rather than expecting the country to accommodate their traditions. It is a confident set of opinions to air during an administration that has spent eighteen months telling legal immigrants, naturalized citizens, and American-born children of immigrants that they may not actually belong here.
The Dog That Didn't Bark
Here is the thing about that Democratic collapse, from 62 percent to 36 percent in a single year. That drop happened in 2025. Donald Trump's second term began in January 2025. The timeline is not ambiguous.
And yes, Republicans are sitting at 92 percent, which is impressive until you remember that the same Republican base spent 2021 and 2022 calling America a socialist hellhole rigged against them, celebrating January 6th as a legitimate act of protest, and telling pollsters the 2020 election was stolen. Republican pride in America correlates very closely with whether their guy is in power. That is not patriotism. That is tribalism wearing a flag pin.
None of this is in Hageman's speech, of course. When the numbers look bad, find a cultural villain. The 1619 Project has been running in schools for a few years. The Republican Party has been running the country, at various levels, for considerably longer.
The 250th Birthday Party Nobody Seems Thrilled About
Hageman's speech was timed to America's 250th Independence Day, and she expressed genuine optimism that the anniversary festivities would help reverse the trend. 'I am, in fact, optimistic that those festivities we've already enjoyed are currently inspiring a new sense of purpose in our national identity,' she said.
The administration has leaned hard into the 250th anniversary as a branding moment, dubbing it 'America 250' and scheduling events, parades, and military displays across the country. Whether watching tanks roll down the National Mall will cause the 83 percent of Americans who are not currently very proud of their country to feel very proud is a question the polling will eventually answer.
History suggests that governments which respond to declining public morale by staging larger and more impressive military spectacles are not typically on an upward trajectory. But what does history know.
The Dingo Take
There is a real story buried in this Gallup data, and it is worth taking seriously. A country where only 17 percent of people feel genuine pride is a country with a problem that goes beyond politics. People are not proud of their country because many of them cannot afford to live in it, because their institutions have been failing them for years, because they have watched the gap between what America promises and what it delivers widen into a canyon. That is a legitimate crisis.
But Harriet Hageman standing in the House chamber and pointing at educators and historians is not a response to that crisis. It is a distraction from it. Her party controls the White House, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court. If the country feels bad right now, they are holding the steering wheel. Blaming the passengers for the direction of the car is a move so audacious it almost earns a grudging respect.
The 1619 Project did not cause this. Drag queens did not cause this. DEI trainings did not cause this. A government that spent years telling half the country it was the enemy, that courts were rigged, that elections were fake, and that the rules applied to everyone except the people in charge, that caused this. When you spend a decade convincing people that the whole system is rotten, do not act confused when the poll comes back and it turns out people think the whole system is rotten.
