Why is American pride at an all-time low?

Lee Greenwood may be “Proud to be an American,” but the same can’t be said for a growing number of his countrymen and women. Those who identify as “extremely” or “very” proud to be American has dropped from 87 percent in 2001 to 58 percent in 2025. 

In 2001, Republicans, Independents and Democrats were all within six points of each other in their reported national pride. But now there’s a 56-point divide between Republicans (92 percent) and Democrats (36 percent). Republicans stay patriotic regardless of the presidency, while Democrats have dropped 24 percent since Trump‘s inauguration this year.

Beyond political affiliation, it seems the younger a generation is, the less American pride its members have. In 2025, Gen Z is the least proud to be American (41 percent), millennials are next (58 percent), Generation X follows (71 percent), and baby boomers pick up the patriotic rear (75 percent). So what’s going on?

Shane Cashman of Tim Pool‘s Timcast thinks the de-patriotizing of young Americans is “one of the consequences of the internet” because “everyone feels like they’re a global citizen, which has washed down people’s ability to feel pride in their own local area of the nation.”

In addition to the internet, Cashman believes educators have had a significant hand in dimming students’ national pride. “As someone who was a professor for many years, I saw professors actively teach that this country is evil, and I don’t think that was just a unique thing to the two colleges I worked at … we’re just taught to hate ourselves and hate our country and hate our history and it starts at a pretty young age, and it’s very unfortunate,” he said.

Online culture journalist Taylor Lorenz believes this lack of young patriotism is due to a disenchantment with politicians, the government and political parties. Millennials, Lorenz’s generation, lived through rigorous patriotism following 9/11, only to watch their parents get walked on by politicians in the 2007-2009 recession, she explained.

“You watch your parents who have worked for like 20 years get laid off with nothing, no benefits, the whole economy cratering just to award rich, wealthy people, and then Obama gave all of the banks bailouts,” Lorenz told The Spectator. “I think it’s a Democrat and a Republican problem. Obama just bailed out the richest bankers, and everyone else suffered, and everyone else lost their jobs, and people lost their houses, and there was never an effort to make amends for that.”

Patriotism itself “is not a problem, if it’s deserved,” Lorenz said, listing universal healthcare and effective infrastructure as achievements that would warrant national pride.

But “progress” for many on the left looks like a shift toward socialism, and “progress” on the right looks like a shift away from it.

Ryan Girdusky, a Republican strategist and founder of the 1776 Project PAC, sees the fall in American pride as an issue with the Democratic party and how it’s been run.

“At no point over the two decades, including while Obama and Biden were president, have Democrats had more pride in this country than Republicans. The partisan divide is even worse among young people with just 27 percent of Gen Z Democrats saying they’re proud to be an American,” he said of the Gallup survey.

Girdusky continued, “These people who lather in self-hate on a daily basis seem to believe that the immense level of peace, prosperity and ordered liberty enjoyed by the American people is the baseline for civilization, and the white man, the patriarchy and capitalism are just holding them back from greater spoils.”

Republicans are even experiencing a resurgence. The second Trump era has seen an uptick in patriotism among Republicans, taking the group from 85 percent to 92 percent.

Drea de Matteo, the Sopranos and Joey actress, was a Democrat for several years before coming to the Trump movement by way of her support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I think the ones that lack true pride in our country have no real idea why,” she told The Spectator. “They’ve been conditioned to hate themselves and one another by the shadow powers that want a one-world government and want the haters and lovers alike to become nothing but barcodes.”

For Democrats, when the country moves away from their specific ideals, their pride slips. Meanwhile, Republicans take pride in the fundamental structure of their republic no matter how inefficient a path it is presently on. That being the case, it may be some time before the whole country feels able to sing the words of Lee Greenwood’s patriotic song.