By: Fern Sidman

As Americans lit up the skies this Fourth of July with traditional fanfare and flags, a growing ideological fault line is increasingly dimming the once-unifying glow of patriotism. A striking new poll, shared exclusively with The New York Post, reveals that red, white, and blue may now mean red versus blue — with sharp partisan divisions over national pride.

According to a national survey conducted by the GOP-aligned National Research Inc., 91% of self-identified Republicans proudly embrace the label “patriot.” Among Democrats, however, only 50% say the same. The figures suggest that patriotism — once considered a baseline American value transcending political affiliation — has become a distinctly partisan sentiment in 2024.

The divide is even more acute among supporters of the current presidential contenders. The poll found that 90% of Trump backers identify as patriots, while only 55% of those who support former Vice President Kamala Harris say the same.

“We need to have a country where even if you don’t love the president, you’re still proud to be an American,” Adam Geller, founder of National Research and a pollster with past ties to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, told The New York Post. “You still hold those values.”

Geller described the findings as “a little breathtaking,” expressing concern that national pride has become just another casualty of America’s intensifying culture wars. “It’s a little leftover saltiness,” he said, referencing post-election polarization, “but it speaks to a deeper unease.”

The findings align closely with a recent Gallup poll, which recorded a dramatic fall in patriotic sentiment among Democrats. The New York Post report indicated that just 36% of Democrats said they were “extremely” or “very” proud to be American — the lowest level for the party in over two decades. In contrast, Republican pride surged to 92%, up seven percentage points from the previous year. Independents, too, showed waning pride, dropping from 60% last year to 53% this year.

Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), a progressive Democrat known for his populist appeal, reacted with alarm to the Gallup results, taking to X (formerly Twitter) to declare: “In the greatest country in the world, that’s just wrong. I’m unapologetically grateful for our nation and the American Way of Life—today, and always.”

Yet even his voice seems to be an outlier within a party increasingly skeptical of traditional displays of nationalism.

Perhaps even more jarring are the generational divides exposed by the Gallup data. According to the information provided in The New York Post report, only 41% of Gen Z respondents — those born after 1997 — describe themselves as very or extremely proud to be American. That figure climbs steadily through the generations: 58% for Millennials, 71% for Gen X, and 75% for Baby Boomers.

“This generational drift is a sobering signal,” Geller told The New York Post. “When the youngest citizens — the ones inheriting our democratic institutions — feel so disconnected from the nation’s values, it suggests a foundational weakening.”

In January 2001, just months before the 9/11 attacks, Gallup measured American pride at 87%. That number spiked to 91% in the aftermath of the tragedy, as a wave of national solidarity gripped the country. Today, that sense of cohesion appears to have fractured: Gallup’s overall figure now stands at 58% — a record low. Only 41% of respondents said they were “extremely” proud to be American, and another 17% said they were “very” proud.

According to the information contained in The New York Post report, the erosion of patriotic sentiment is not merely rhetorical. Symbols once unifying — the flag, the anthem, Independence Day itself — have become battlegrounds in broader cultural conflicts. For some on the left, expressions of pride in American history evoke unresolved legacies of racial injustice and systemic inequality. For many on the right, criticism of American institutions feels like betrayal.

“The next step is understanding why this is happening,” Geller reflected, while speaking to The New York Post. “We’ve established that, on average, the left is about 50% [patriotic]. What is it about the American story they no longer believe in?”

The National Research poll, conducted between June 21 and June 23, surveyed 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points. The Gallup survey, which polled a comparable sample between June 2 and June 19, has a margin of error of ±4.0 percentage points.

With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon — and the nation’s 250th birthday just a year away — the data paints a complicated portrait of American identity. Patriotism, once the connective tissue binding citizens across political divides, now reflects the very divisions it once helped to transcend.

As The New York Post report noted, this year’s celebration comes “not with a chorus, but with a question mark.” Whether the country can recapture a shared sense of pride and purpose — or whether even that ideal is now a partisan proposition — remains to be seen.