Overall, 39% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely proud” to be American in the most recent poll.
Meanwhile, only 18% of those aged 18-34 said the same, compared to 40% of those aged 35-54 and 50% of those 55 and over.
18% is still too high. As Obama’s pastor said, God damn America! Americans have very little to be proud of at this point.
For a lot of folks, I think this is accurate, but the problem is that the US has totally and absolutely exhausted all of its WWI/WWII “good guy” image on the global scene… As a base line, I feel generally neutral about where I was born, because I had no control over it. It’s when I show empathy and factor in the opinion of others that things sour. The US military spent 2/3 of my life bombing Afghan villagers, and they mortgaged my future to do it. I can’t be proud of that. We allowed unfettered greed to run rampant with no supervision and crashed the world economy multiple times. I’m not proud of that either.
I have this conversation with some of my older relatives occasionally, and I always tell them that in order for me to be proud, the US needs to do something that’s worth being proud of. And while there are some small things, there’s nothing that outweighs the immense damage the US has done to the world as a whole in my lifetime.
Very true. I was keeping my scope to just my personal experience, but if you expand how you look at the country to include things that have been done in its name, then we live in a country whose government has systematically oppressed people and aided in genocides, fascist coups, and so many other terrible things throughout the world, and all of that pushes me to be actively the opposite of proud of it. But that also raises the question of to what extent does being proud of your country entail being proud of its government, and that’s some political theory shit I don’t have the straws for right now.