According to Gallup's latest survey, exactly 14 percent of Democrats say they're "extremely proud" to be American. Fourteen. Not a typo. Among Republicans, that number is 70 percent — a 56-point gap, the largest in the poll's 25-year history.
America's 250th birthday is Saturday. One party is throwing the party. The other one can barely RSVP.
CNN contributor Scott Jennings laid out the numbers on Anderson Cooper's show this week with the kind of bluntness that makes CNN panels uncomfortable. "The data is clear and our eyes and ears don't lie," Jennings said. "Democrats, sadly, hate America and Republicans love it." Cooper's response wasn't exactly a rebuttal. It was more of a subject change.
The data Jennings cited goes deeper than one poll. An NBC News survey conducted June 6-10 among 1,000 adults found that only 56 percent of Americans overall say they're "extremely" or "very" proud to be American — down from 67 percent just one year ago and a freefall from the nearly 90 percent recorded after September 11, 2001. Break it down by party and the picture gets worse: 90 percent of Republicans hit those top-two pride categories. Only 29 percent of Democrats did — a record low.
CNN's own Harry Enten has reported on the same trend, documenting Democrats souring on America across multiple data points. Gallup's numbers, when you combine "extremely" and "very" proud, show Republicans at 93 percent, independents at 51 percent, and Democrats at 27 percent. Gallup Senior Editor Megan Brenan noted that "pride has been falling for two decades, but the pace has quickened in recent years."
Jennings pointed to something viewers could verify with their own memory: Democrats refusing to stand during President Trump's State of the Union address when asked to show support for putting "America and Americans first." That wasn't a polling artifact. That was on camera, in the Capitol, broadcast live. The patriotism gap isn't theoretical. It has footage.
The counterargument from the left is predictable — that dissatisfaction with the country's direction isn't the same as hating the country. Fair enough as a philosophical point. But the polls don't ask about policy direction. They ask whether you're proud to be American. Period. And when only 14 percent of your party can muster "extremely proud" while the nation prepares to celebrate a quarter-millennium of existence, the distinction between "disappointed in" and "embarrassed by" starts to feel academic.
The timing makes it unavoidable. The Great American State Fair is opening on the National Mall. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence falls on Saturday. Fireworks are being loaded, flags are going up, and Gallup just told us that belief in the American Dream itself has collapsed along partisan lines — 57 percent of Republicans still believe in it, compared to 17 percent of Democrats.
Republicans' pride numbers hold steady regardless of which party controls the White House. That's the part the "it's about policy" crowd never addresses. Republican pride didn't crater under Obama or Biden. It stayed high. Democratic pride, on the other hand, tracks almost perfectly with whether their team is winning. That's not patriotism with conditions attached. That's fandom.
Saturday, 250 candles go on the cake. Ninety-three percent of one party will be there to blow them out. Twenty-seven percent of the other might show up — if nothing better is on the schedule.