Friday, July 4, 2025

American Pride

It seems that over the last few years an increasing numbers of Americans have been more interested in celebrating June as Pride Month than celebrating July 4th to show pride in their country.

This observation is supported by a survey that indicates those who say they are proud to be an American has dropped significantly over the last 25 years.

87% of all Americans said they were extremely/very proud to be an American in 2001.

That number is now down to 58%.


You can trace some of this deterioration in American pride to Donald Trump's election in 2016.

However, the trend had been in motion much earlier than that.

The reality is that all of the erosion between 2001 and 2025 on pride in being an American has been  among Democrat voters with some assistance from Independents.



90% of Republicans stated that they were extremely/very  proud to be an American in 2001.

That number is now 92%

It was over 90% during the Obama years and even well over 80% during the Biden years.

When it comes to pride in being an American, Republicans are red, white and blue through and through.

On the other hand, the numbers of Democrats who say they are extremely/very proud to be American has dropped from 87% in 2001 to 36% today.

Why do we see the scorn we do about the United States of America from Democrats in particular?

A big reason for this seems to be that younger people in particular have negative views about America due to our liberal education system that spends more time maligning the United States and its Founders than extolling its virtues.

The education establishment loves to push the narrative to their students that everything about the United States is illegitimate in that it was founded by a bunch of rich, white men who created a system based on slavery and were primarily concerned with protecting their own self interests.

Of course, this narrative fails to mention that our Founders were generally the elite in the American colonies. The British system had worked out well for their self interests. They were "the 1%" in that day and age.

By declaring independence from the British, they put all that they had at risk--their lives, their livelihoods, and their riches---for independence and freedom for all.

As Benjamin Franklin put it so aptly to the other Founders right after they put their names on the Declaration of Independence.



Why did they do it?

They valued freedom and independence for themselves and their fellow Americans more than their own self-interests.

How many would do the same today?

The United States founding is also maligned and students are taught that the country is evil because it was established on a foundation of slavery.

The narrative that many Leftists believe today is that the United States of America is inherently flawed and evil because slavery was not explicitly forbidden in its founding documents. The argument follows that all of the Founders, at a minimum, were complicit in supporting the institution of slavery and that everything that follows is forever tainted and illegitimate.

I find it amusing that the primary thing that progressives seem to have that supports their view that the country is inherently flawed is to cite things from 250 years ago. I guess none of the good that the country did over the next 250 years counts? 

Being the first country in the world to provide power to the people to govern themselves. Providing the highest standard of living to people in the history of the world. Confronting and defeating the axis of evil (Germany and Japan) in WWII. Rebuilding those countries and returning those countries to the citizens after they had been defeated. When has that ever been done in the history of mankind?

It should also be remembered that our Founders inherited the slave system from the British. It was not an invention by our Founders. In fact, a little known fact is that in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson included a provision that attacked slavery and the King's actions in "suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."




This passage was deleted in the final Declaration that was approved but I think it pretty clearly shows that Jefferson was not aiding in "the construction of institutionalized racism and subjugation of racism" as has been alleged by Leftists.  He was actually attempting to deconstruct it.

Yes, some of the Founders owned slaves but most of those were inherited. Most of our Founders wanted to curtail and find a way out of slavery. That is one of the main reasons that slaves were only counted as 3/5 in census calculations for the number of reps each state got in Congress. It was done to limit the influence of the slave states so they could not expand the practice. It was done to put pressure on those states to end the practice. Notice it did not apply to free black citizens. They were fully counted. It only applied to slaves. It was a penalty. 

Why did Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers accede to removing this language in the Declaration of Independence? Quite simply, if they were to be successful in breaking away from Great Britain, and gaining independence, all 13 colonies had to be totally united. If not, as Franklin said, they all might hang separately.

The larger goal of independence from Great Britain took precedence as it was not possible to move forward without all colonies being united on the issue of slavery. Several southern colonies simply would not sign on to the Declaration of Independence with that passage in it. The Founders wanted freedom from Great Britain. They were not going to achieve that goal by dividing the colonies at the outset.

We saw that same thing on the vote on the Big Beautiful Bill in the Senate and House over the last week. There were many issues that individual Republicans did not like in the bill. However, the Republicans knew they had to deliver on the bigger goal of supporting the Trump agenda failing the Republicans were elected on last year. Failing in passing that bill and maintaining the status quo was not an option.

Passing that bill with the slim majorities that Republicans had in both Houses is the greatest political achievement I have witnessed in my lifetime. It simply could not have been done without the leadership of Donald J. Trump.

Tough compromises are necessary on tough issues. Moving forward allows for a fight for another day. That was the case with the Big Beautiful Bill.

It was also why compromises had to even be made with the Declaration of Independence. The issue of eliminating slavery would have to wait for another day.  Retaining the status quo accomplished nothing for the cause of freedom in the 1770's---for anyone---colonists or slaves. 

Jefferson was later instrumental in making sure there was a ban on slavery in the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 and it was Jefferson who as President initiated the legislation that banned the importation of any more slaves.

Were the Founders perfect? No.

Did they create a perfect United States of America? No.

However, they made it a whole lot better than it was. They also established a foundation of freedom that endures today. Should that not account for a fair and balanced view of the contributions of Jefferson, Washington and others who founded the United States at great risk and cost to themselves?

The framework they established also provided a model that has provided rights and freedom for billions of other people on this earth that was unheard of before these men made that Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

Our Founders were not inherently flawed. They devised a system of government that has survived longer than anything in existence in the world today. Think about it. UK, France, Germany,  China. Russia, Japan are all operating under a different governing system than they were 200 years ago. The USA has endured. These men were flawed? No, they were geniuses.

Today is the day to celebrate their contributions.

It is also a day to be proud to be an American

God Bless the USA!

1 comment:

  1. Also the rest of the world can thank Americans for all of the inventions Americans have contributed, think the Wright brothers and many other American inventors.

    ReplyDelete