Most Americans are proud of our country and happy to be citizens, writes Michael Baharaeen on the Liberal Patriot. Political progressives are the exception.
In a June 2022 Echelon Insights poll, two-thirds of Americans said ours is "the greatest country in the world." But two-thirds of “strong progressives” disagreed.
Seventy-six percent said their American identity is important to them in a More In Common survey last July. "Majorities of every ideological sub-group agreed — except for progressive activists, just 35 percent of whom embraced being American as part of their identity."
The far left has tried to "rewrite the story of America’s founding," centering it on "the original sin of slavery" rather than "the values set forth in 1776 in the Declaration of Independence," he writes. Embracing that cynicism will hurt Democrats.
"Although significant majorities of the country do want public schools to teach a full accounting of U.S. history, including the less admirable parts, recent surveys show that at least two-thirds of Americans are also proud of their country," writes Baharaeen, director of political research at Blue Compass Strategies. No party will succeed if voters perceive it to be "disavowing patriotism and looking down on those who embrace it."
Some Americans are conflicted about celebrating the Fourth of July, reports Alyson Krueger in the New York Times.
Marissa Vivori, 29, a tech product manager in Manhattan, worries about heat, crowds, expense (the Hamptons) and politics. “Last summer Roe v. Wade was overturned, and that really made me less inclined to celebrate,” she said. So she's going to Italy and Britain instead.
My hometown, Highland Park, Illinois, has canceled the Fourth of July parade. Instead, there will be a remembrance ceremony and community walk through downtown to honor the victims of last year's shooting: Seven people died and 48 others were injured.
There will be a community picnic and a drone show in the evening, but no fireworks.
Cooper Roberts, 9, who was paralyzed from the waist down, is playing tennis and swimming, with adaptive equipment, his mother Keely Roberts reports.
As an immigrant from Cuba, Martin Gurri made the U.S. his country, he writes on The Free Press. It takes an immigrant to appreciate America's "extraordinary history."
"Being young in the United States felt like an immense adventure — a constant exploration and discovery of new perspectives in a land of infinite possibilities," Gurri writes. The American legacy of freedom "belonged to me no less than to any Mayflower descendant — maybe more, since I knew too well the alternative to freedom."
Yet, all his five-year-old grandson knows about George Washington is that, "He owned slaves."
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