What Happened In 2013-2014 That Caused Democrat Pride In America To Fall Off A Cliff?
It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
The Black Lives Matter hashtag and slogan was developed in 2013 in reaction to the (lawful self-defense) shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. The following year, 2014, the organization was formalized by self-avowed “trained Marxists” after the (lawful) police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Those two shootings falsely were portrayed as racially motivated, while the facts (which we covered in exhaustive detail at the time) proved otherwise. Nonetheless the narrative was set and hating America and being American was necessary to be accepted into Democrat spaces. Even Bernie was not spared the wrath of BLM activists.
The formation of Black Lives Matter as an organized movement led to over a decade of non-stop virtue-signaling activism deriding the U.S. as systemically racist and worthy of deconstruction. It all culminated in the post-George Floyd riots and “anti-racism” activism whose bubble finally appears to have burst.
But not before severe damage was done to the nation, particularly Democrat pride in being American.
In fact, 2013-2014 is when Democrats’ pride in being American fell off a cliff and never recovered, as a just-released Gallup survey shows:
A record-low 58% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” (41%) or “very” (17%) proud to be an American, down nine percentage points from last year and five points below the prior low from 2020. The 41% who are “extremely proud” is not statistically different from prior lows of 38% in 2022 and 39% in 2023, indicating most of the change this year is attributable to a decline in the percentage who are “very proud.” ….
Democrats are mostly responsible for the drop in U.S. pride this year, with 36% saying they are extremely or very proud, down from 62% a year ago. This is only the second time Democrats’ pride has fallen below the majority level, along with a 42% reading in 2020, the last year of the first Trump administration. That poll was conducted during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and shortly after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.
Political independents’ pride has also reached a low point, with 53% expressing a great deal of pride, down seven points from last year, which had been the previous low for this group. Independents’ pride has been declining since the early 2000s, dropping below 80% for the first time in 2005, then below 70% in 2019 and below 60% this year.
Republicans’ level of national pride has been much steadier, typically registering above 90%, including 92% this year, up from 85% in 2024. The only years in which fewer than nine in 10 Republicans were proud were 2016 and 2020 through 2024. All but 2020 were when a Democratic president was in office.
It’s pretty easy to see the inflection point in Democrat (lack of) pride occuring in 2013-2014, and never recovering. Independents also showed a decline but not as steep or severe:
[box added]
Coincidence?
Correlation does not equal causation?
Sure. Don’t believe your own eyes or memories.
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On the path of Michelle, when they lose, they have no love for America. America should be their atheistic Santa Claus…. the gifts of non-judgmental largess. Their world is always full of setbacks and shortcomings needing redress. Rush described them as all having some chip on their shoulder or needing revenge for some spite. They didn’t win “life’s lottery” when they see others succeed. In a world of ever increasing opportunity and further from the harshness of the distant past, nothing is ever better… “it’s never enough”.
The South should have picked their own F’g cotton. I sometimes think Lincoln should have allowed the South to secede and built a border wall at that time. Would both north and south be better off now? Who knows, As it is now this country is about to split into coasts and heartland with major cities joining the coasts. The interstates will become conduits between the coasts and their inner cities. That’s a lot more walls to build.
If we had to make that decision today, as in red/blue secession, I suspect there’s a chance it might be doable. But we often forget that back in Lincoln’s day, it wasn’t just the South he had to worry about — we had two other significant land borders fronted by rivals who weren’t the relative military nonentities they are today.
Don’t forget, there were 4 slave states (Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri) that did not secede. They gave Lincoln cause to worry all through the war that they would change their minds. Then the North would be lost.
Lincoln never had it easy. There were the “Copperheads” who referred to “Lincoln’s war” and would have had no problem leaving slavery in place in exchange for ‘peace’.
I thing that they made a mistake when they did not expel all the slaves. They did consider doing so.
I am not against with merit, the problem is that ther are more without merit than there are with merit.
What’s the point of the federal government keeping 23% of a race on retainer, if it can’t draft them every once in a while for some good old Marxist street warfare?
That incident in 2015, where screaming BLM activists shoved Sanders aside and commandeered his microphone while he stood there helpless, told me everything I needed to know. That he can’t lead, and if he was elected, the screaming meanies would be in charge.
It was hillary
And note too that Democrats only rebounded for Biden’s period, but that was only recovered half the lost ground, if that, while Trump’s democratic victory has sent it crashing down to a never before seen low!
FWIW I don’t like the whole pride question, and the moderately or little proud to be American figures are not given, but neither are not at all proud.
Change in pride over time is interesting too. There’s no real change for Republicans, but Independent Baby Boomers and Gen X 2016-2025 v 2001-2015 are down 10 points, Millennials are less, but 15-20 points behind the earlier generations. Democrats however, Silent/Greatest are down 11 points, Baby Boomers are down 17 points, Gen X 21 points, and Millennials 32 points! As for Gen Z, even Republicans are only 65%, Independents are 48, and only 24% of Democrats are extremely or very proud to be American. A change in language, or a change in views, or indoctrination, about their country?
I suspect it’s a change in tone in their media consumption. 2010 is where the reality of the Obama administration started to set in after the Hope & Change of the Obama election campaign. Hope & change is hard to sell to the populace after a couple years of “Yeah, we destroyed your health insurance. You’re welcome.”
Obama not meeting the promise of a new era of light-bringing? Well, it was a crap country to begin with! Look at all of the awful Obama has to deal with! And so on and so forth.
If I’m not “very proud” to be an American, it’s because of how far she has fallen and how many of our liberties have either been converted into privileges or into crimes. America has been devolving since the Civil War, during which Lincoln put in motion many insidious ideas and set many bad precedents. It’s been downhill from there, although not without its highlights.
I;m not sure that is a fair statement. Episodes in American history that come to mind:
1) WW1 and WW2 participation
2) Landing a man on the moon
3) Coming together after 9/11
4) Defeating Soviet Union in cold war
These were all significant events.
I will agree that there are many other events that make me unhappy to be an American.
My two cents worth is that Republican pride tends to be rooted in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. We understand why European peasants rushed to America for opportunities. Democrats allowed themselves to be convinced the USA is a racist country, even as thousands upon thousands of brown people wal;ked over the border to get into this racist country.
For some reason, Democrats – particularly women – are so easily manipulated as to be ridiculous. It’s as if they aren’t real adults, just children playing a game. BLM was certainly playing a game. They pulled off a great con, and now their leaders are living in mansions in gated communities.
My personal hunch, and it’s only a hunch, is that this wave of pro black racism, where a black teen is rewarded for killing an unarmed white kid, for instance, is the last hurrah before blacks are over run by a fecund and growing Latino minority. If for nothing but sheer numbers, the legal Latino community will overwhelm and silence blacks. That would be my bet. And Latinos will be proud to be Americans. They know where they come from.
Latinos already outnumbers Blacks, but they aren’t considered a race so don’t count – Blacks comprise about 12% of the population, Hispanics and Latinos (not sure the difference) are already 19%.
Broken down to races however 33% are Multiracial, 20% are White, 2% are Native, 2% are Black, and 42% are Some Other Race – maybe the ones who consider Hispanic to be their race? It’s not such a racially obvious voter block however as Black, White or Yellow.
And since Latinos aren’t on the Democrat plantation like Blacks, and Woke Leftists, yes the lean Democrat, but increasingly they’re going Republican, especially the men. With enough time they may become a Republican voter group!
The Declaration of Independence contains a huge lie. ‘ All men are created equal’ Well -the statement itself is not a lie but the writer clearly didn’t believe it nor did many of the signers.
The fact that so many white people refuse to see the blatant hypocrisy of the founding document only became glaringly apparent fairly recently..
BLM may have been a catalyst, but I think the lack of pride is based in more fundamental aspects of our social technocracy.
Pride is harder to come by, when you have been told all your life that you are not “qualified” to manage your own life; that you are some sort of victim that can’t get by without the intervention of those deemed to Know Better™.
OTOH, when it comes to those who Know Better™, how can they have pride in a nation that does not move heaven and earth to preserve their most precious investment: their lifetime, all-in investment in attaining the elite status associated with Knowing Better™, that depends upon the deference of everyone else to them.
A high-tech serfdom is not growth media for pride. It is growth media for both dependence and hubris.
Pride is fostered, when one lives in a society where both individual liberty is respected, and individual responsibility is expected.
The “murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers?” Seriously?
It was stupidity driven suscide.
The toxicology report showed more than enough fentanyl, as well as other drugs, to kill a healthy man – which he was not.
.
The statement is one: a) that is accurate in terms of an adjudicated jury trial and sentence, and b) may have been stated as plainly to draw attention to the, here unmentioned, absurdity thereof. 🤷♂️
For sure, “a)” above.
The left swings between proud and ashamed with leadership changes. It’s a hormone thing.
The right swings less with leadership changes, namely between dignified and reserved.
I can see the argument for 2013- 2014. Personally I think the country as whole really disgraced itself in 2008 with the election of Obama. And extended the dishonor in 2012.
Admittedly, Romney was a loser candidate to oppose him with.
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
As was McCain.
The material, technological infrastructure underpinning modernity in America is so robust and reliable it enables the segment of the population that neither builds or maintain it to distain it thinking it a permanent entitlement, that will be put to the test
blmplo faction has officially taken over america
you dont get socialism as a norm and not have had some form of violence and the future threat of violence as a policy
there are plenty of no go zones for americans MOSTLY WHITE( male) AMERICANS
And thats not just the streets…jobs..employment are not going by merit so blackface might be your only hope there,,ironically
Jewish? a major no go zone has been your college campuses
female? a major no go zone is and is becoming your own bathrooms
( the current tide turning toward normalcy is temporary)
sure many want to ignore those facts so they can act as helpless as the german population did in 1920’s–30s when the jewish population there was “thinned out”
If I had to guess at the pivotal moment, it was the rise & dominance of identity politics in society that tipped the Democrats into a loss of pride in the country. Hundreds of voices categorizing people into labeled groups and then denouncing the historical treatment of those groups at length and at volume. An over-emphasis on the struggles and oppression of every identity group under the sun (and new groups being identified every week) would lead people who bought into that kind of group identity mindset into thinking that this country was nothing but an oppression factory.
It all started in the runup to Obama’s second term. Realizing he was going to lose reelection due to his lurch leftward, ‘The Great Unifier ‘ cynically embarked on a social balkanization campaign that did massive, perhaps irreparable damage, to our Republic.
I’m thinking it was the dissolving of internal barriers in the Democratic party that caused this. The Dems have always pandered to multiple group X by slandering group Y, and still managed to bring all those groups together with the understanding that “Yeah, we called you Y names, but that’s not really *you* we’re calling names. That’s some other group of Y and we all should unite in love.” Around 2013-2014 most of the group Y people started realizing “Hey, wait. They really do hate us. We can’t pay reparations, march in the streets, and redirect a river of taxpayer cash to them in order to get back in their good graces. They just hate us.” There still are members of Y who think they can do ‘good’ deeds to buy their social credit scores up, but they’re the Chickens for Col. Sanders bunch.
Also contributing to this erosion of patriotism are the schools: primary, secondary, and colleges. In school one is exposed to terms that are bandied about as if truth (but never proven) used to describe the US include “systemic racism”, “stolen land”, “white supremacy”, “patriarchal”, “colonialism”, as well as the open disparagement of capitalism. After ten years the drum beat of these toxins have to produce some effect.
“pride in america”???
or happy we got our way
the dems agenda from day -1000000000 is
the government over the people
so ok lets move up to more modern times and the dems
woody wilson and the fed~~~~ hate for america/capitalism
fdr~~~~ hate for merit hate for the middle class hate for the poc
jfk/lbj….bay of pigs…why did they bail???
vietnam….complete hatred for america and hten the civil rights bs laws that further trapped BOTH THE BLACK POPULATION AS BEHOLDEN to the welfare state,,,,
but the pulling down of the american middle class to pay for it all
THEN ADD IN THE RINOS…that is leftism when it comes in particular to the fiscal conservatism
When I see a poll I see me being manipulated. Especially by polls which offer answers of degree instead of simple yes/no or agree/disagree.
There was never pride…there was always a grift and open hands waiting to get paid to picket or speak in hollow
Americans are proud to be Americans because they made their own way in life with a government that allowed them to do so. They built their businesses, they raised their families and they did not live off the taxes of others.
Too many living in America are not Americans.
They started to figure out that their party wasn’t listening to them, and their party is now a pack of communists.
The hashtag predated it as far as Oscar Grant. The Black Victimist crowd goes as far back as Emmitt Till and Amadou Diallo. But the catalyst was Obama who enabled them.
Obama enabled them, but the pot was brewing since Critical Theory had been setting up or taking over multiple Victim schools of thought. Especially Critical Race Theory.
The Declaration of Independence contains a huge lie. ‘ All men are created equal’ Well -the statement itself is not a lie but the writer clearly didn’t believe it nor did many of the signers.
The fact that so many white people refuse to see the blatant hypocrisy of the founding document only became glaringly apparent fairly recently..
Lost your trademark “LAFFRIOT”?
You posted twice because nobody cared enough to respond to you the 1st time? Understandable
Last response you’ll ever get from me; I won’t even bother to downvote you after today
You post foolish things that anyone with even passing knowledge of (in this case the Constitution) can tell you’re completely wrong. The Founders knew all men were equal in the eyes of God even if some were smart and others were like, well, you.
Go away, “LAFFRIOT.”
You’re such an uninteresting troll.
Yes- after writing the Declaration of Indepence ,Jefferson freed all his slaves because he couldn’t live with his glaring hypocrisy! LAFFRIOT
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others. -Your socialist utopia
I’m convinced a large pile of people on this comment section didn’t read the article. This is not about American pride but specifically one party that abandoned their national heritage.
Most of them were grifters to begin with so pride was mere lipservice to them like “Support our troops (but undermine the military)” or “Black Lives Matter (but Blue Lives do not)” These were all about finding an angle to grift…there’s not a real person among most of the key instigators.
The only Democrats who had some love for America were “old timers” like Scoop Jackson—all of whom are long gone. The hatred didn’t start with the BLM arm of Democrat domestic terrorism (the original Democrat terrorist arm being the KKK). The Vietnam War street thugs rioting in Chicago had plenty of disgust for America and plenty of love for America-hating Democrats like John Kerry. In fact, the Democrat Party’s efforts to undermine America’s founding principles and the Constitution go back to the Wilson administration. So their treachery is over 100 years old.
3 frauds. Sexual Assault . Libel. 34 counts felony. 3 felony indictments with a mountain of credible evidence. Decent, grounded, intelligent people are DISGUSTED by that, Tough to feel patriotic when #THAT# is in the WH.
They’re still bitter over losing the Civil War.
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