In a recent poll, only eight percent of college Democrats said they are “very proud” to be an American. That number was 74 percent for college Republicans.
The poll, published by The College Fix but conducted by College Pulse, also found that 33 percent of college Democrats surveyed are at least “moderately” proud to be American. By comparison, 20 percent of those Republicans surveyed said the same.
Among independent college students, 30 percent were “very proud” to be an American, and 38 percent were “moderately proud.”
In total, 22 percent of college Democrats said they were “not proud at all” to be an American. That number was 11 percent for college independents and 2 percent for college Republicans.
When broken down by race, 34 percent of whites, 25 percent of Hispanic Latinos, 22 percent of American Indians, 21 percent of Asians, 17 percent of blacks said they were very proud to be an American.
The poll surveyed 1,000 students in the College Pulse’s Student Panel, which has more than 240,000 verified students from 800 colleges in all 50 states and has a margin of error of 3.5 percent. It asked the students: How proud are you to be an American: very proud, moderately proud, only a little proud, or not at all proud?
“Hell yeah I’m proud. I hit the jackpot being born in America. I could’ve been born in a worse country that denies women/gays/trans basic human rights,” one person commented on the poll.
Other commenters questioned the premise of the poll or moderated their views on being an American.
“Seems kinda silly to be proud about something I had zero control over,” one person commented.
Another commenter said “I’m pretty proud about a lot of things this country has done. But I accept the fact that the US has committed many mistakes and I hope we can accept responsibility and continue to strive for greatness.”
Other comments also turned to criticism of the U.S. government, while at least one comment implied that born-Americans have nothing to be proud of.
“I didn’t do a damn thing to be born here. I didn’t risk my life crossing an ocean in a life raft, or trekking across a desert. I’m not an indigenous survivor of 6 centuries of genocide. I’m not proud of being American at all,” a commenter said.
The poll is the latest in a trend showing pride in being an American is steadily declining.
A poll by Gallup published in July found that pride in being an American has hit an all-time low since the organization began conducting the surveys in 2001, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
The Gallup poll found that 70 percent of U.S. adults overall said they are proud to be Americans — half of those (45 percent) said they are “extremely” proud. The poll marked Gallup’s second consecutive year in which being very proud to be an American is not the majority opinion.
Additionally, Democrats have continued to lag behind Republicans in expressing extreme pride in the United States.
