Opinion: Every Day Should Be a ‘Proud to Be an American Day’

WASHINGTON, DC, Jul 4 — You may have missed it. Proud to be an American Day came and went in the month of May with very little fanfare. Perhaps it was because too many of us are not full of the pride we used to have for our country in the good old days. It seems that gone are the days when politicians — notwithstanding their personal ideologies — had one thing in common: respect for the Constitution, the legacies of our Founding Fathers, the history of our great nation, and, of course, the American flag. Back then, our elected officials had one thing in common: to preserve the Union, not to trade it in for a Marxist dictatorship that would tell us what to think, what to do and how to live our lives.

The dismay that Americans live with these days is revealed in a new Gallup poll. It shows that the extreme pride of our citizens is at an all-time low, revealing that just 38% of respondents describe themselves as “extremely proud” to be Americans– the lowest level since Gallup started keeping track of our national pride in 2001. In those days, the poll showed that as many as 91% of us were extremely proud of our country. Regarding this year’s poll, Gallup points out that “Still, together with the 27% who are ‘very proud,’ 65% of U.S. adults express pride in the nation. Another 22% say they are ‘moderately proud,’ while 9% are ‘only a little’ and 4% are ‘not at all’ proud.”

Meanwhile, a separate poll conducted by Fox News appears to confirm America’s discontent. That survey shows that 48% of Democrats, 60% of Republicans, and 64% of independents are not proud of our country these days. Chris Anderson, a Democrat, and Daron Shaw, a Republican, conducted the poll. They said the results show, “Whereas once being proud of America was treated as a prerequisite for being patriotic, that too has been subsumed by partisanship. It seems, for many, pride and patriotism are no longer about our democratic freedoms but about the person in the White House.” 

Indeed, to paraphrase President Truman, “The Buck Stops There,” in the White House. But, this time, America’s disappointment can be blamed on the emergence of a political movement that once was abhorrent to Americans, Marxism. It’s no secret that the progressive socialist elements that have infiltrated the Democratic Party seek to replace democracy with Marxist socialism. And there’s no doubt that it has created a measure of disillusionment. 

Last year, around this time, the New York Times published a Fourth of July article asserting that flying the American flag on Independence Day and other national holidays was losing its appeal among many citizens. The article claimed, “What was once a unifying symbol — there is a star on it for each state, after all — is now alienating to some, its stripes now fault lines between people who kneel while The Star-Spangled Banner plays and those for whom not pledging allegiance is an affront.”

However, a survey conducted by YouGovAmerica in time for this year’s celebration of the Fourth of July found that a significant segment of the population still has a positive fondness for Old Glory. The poll found that 60% of us have a “very positive” view of the flag, but just 41% of the under-30 population feel that way versus 78% of very proud seniors 65 years old and older. The disparity is most notable when you consider the political affiliations of those who were polled. “Very positive” is how 83% of Republicans said they feel about the flag, as did 61% of Independents. However, just 49% of Democrats view the American flag as “very positive.”  Perhaps it’s because of the Left turn that the Democratic Party has made in recent years.

Consider the sudden upheaval in the bastion of capitalism, corporate America. Take the Disney organization, for example. For generations, it has been a promoter of the American way of life, but under new management, it has become downright un-American, pandering to the most extreme elements of the progressive socialist movement. Disney is not alone in its quest to overturn our nation’s traditions. Fox News reported last December that, in addition to Disney, “Coca-Cola, American Express, Bank of America, Lowe’s and Pfizer faced accusations that they trained employees on certain ‘woke’ ideas, such as putting ‘marginalized’ staff above ‘privileged’ staff, learning to ‘decolonize their minds’ and combating aspects of an alleged ‘White supremacy culture,’ such as perfectionism, individualism, and objectivity.”

The goal of the progressive socialist movement is to upend the traditional American way of life, and so it comes as no surprise that they would target our corporations. But Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, suggests that, in order to achieve victory, the movement must win the hearts and minds of the next generations of Americans. And so they have targeted our children using what is known as the Critical Race Theory [CRT]. In an Opinion article published in the New York Post, Rufo explains that CRT “is an academic discipline, formulated in the 1990s and built on the intellectual framework of identity-based Marxism. Relegated for many years to universities and obscure academic journals, it has increasingly become the default ideology in our public institutions over the past decade. It has been injected into government agencies, public school systems, teacher training programs, and corporate human resources departments in the form of diversity training programs, human resources modules, public policy frameworks, and school curricula.”

Perhaps you saw the Fox News Fourth of July feature story over the holiday weekend focused on 100-year-old World War II veteran and U.S. Marine Carl Spurlin Dekel. Dekel is a very proud American who was tearfully beyond dismay as he lamented, on camera, his take on the state of the union. In his words, “People don’t realize what they have. The things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it, it’s all gone down the drain. We haven’t got the country we had when I was raised, not at all.  Nobody will have the fun I had. Nobody will have the opportunity I had. It’s just not the same and that’s not what our boys, that’s not what they died for.”

We as Americans must stand strong in our communities for our Nation, the Constitution, and the rule of law; the protection of our God-given rights and freedoms start with and depend upon us individually.