The Democrats’ Patriotism Gap

By Rich Lowry

Tuesday, June 16, 2026

 

Democrats take great offense at accusations of being unpatriotic, but the data don’t lie.

 

A new NBC News poll captured the partisan gap over pride in America. Overall, 56 percent of Americans are extremely or very proud of the country, but only 29 percent of Democrats, compared with 90 percent of Republicans.

 

That’s a yawning gap, and about a matter that really shouldn’t be controversial. We aren’t talking about abortion, or Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, but an elemental thing — pride in country — that in most times and places has been taken for granted.

 

Once upon a time, that was the case here. The Gallup poll found in January 2001 that nearly 90 percent of Americans were extremely or very proud of the country.

 

In 2017, according to Gallup, 75 percent of the public said that they were extremely or very proud of America, a low at the time, and it’s been down since. The decline has been driven largely by Democrats.

 

Their disdain for President Trump clearly is responsible for some of the drop, but not all of it. Democrats were less proud of the country than Republicans when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were president.

 

Obviously, pride in country shouldn’t depend on who is president; the country is so much more than its politics. Mark Twain said, aptly, that “the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”

 

Even if you have contempt for the party in power, there’s the country’s Founding, its constitutional system, its stupendous wealth, its great heroes, its victories in two world wars, its natural beauty, and its endlessly interesting, fair-minded, and inventive people to feel proud of.

 

Many Democrats are unmoved by these things or consider them sources of embarrassment. The Founding? Tainted by racism. The constitutional system? An antiquated obstacle to progress. The economy? Rigged by and for billionaires. Our heroes? Feet of clay or worse.

 

A key word here is “systemic,” as in “systemic racism,” which suggests that racism is not a product of historical circumstance but endemic to the American project itself.

 

Why feel pride in a country that is not yet redeemed, indeed may be unredeemable?

 

The left — especially in the academy — has long advanced the view that America’s role in the world is predatory and imperialistic, and over time this radical critique of U.S. foreign policy has gained more traction within the Democratic mainstream.

 

Then there’s the attitude toward small-scale expressions of patriotism — American-flag imagery, lapel pins, fly-overs, Lee Greenwood songs, and the like — that progressives tend to consider crude or jingoistic.

 

The Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, James Talarico, once called the American flag “a complicated symbol.”

 

If the national banner doesn’t elicit an instinctive feeling of devotion, one’s attachment to the country is likely attenuated as well.

 

Many progressives would counter that America is a set of ideals and we should feel fealty to it only to the extent we realize those ideals. But the country and its people are also a concrete reality, and you either like them or not, feel connected to them or not, and — this is close to the crux of the matter — feel grateful for them or not.

 

Nearly everyone who isn’t particularly proud of America is still incredibly indebted to it, benefiting from its liberty and prosperity.

 

It’s a profound act of ingratitude not to return the debt with a sense of reverence and obligation. It’s not enough to say, in effect, you’ll feel proud of the country at some future point when it has met certain social and political benchmarks. “Lord, make me patriotic, but not yet” — this amounts to a version of St. Augustine’s famous prayer.

 

In short, patriotism shouldn’t be a partisan issue but a foundational commitment of both parties and all factions. These days, though, we can’t even agree to feel proud of the nation we share and owe so much.