Greetings on this Friday, July 4th, 2025, Our Independence Day.

Welcome to the Daily Article podcast.

I'm Chris Elkins, narrator, voicing today's daily article written by Denison Forum's senior editor for theology, Dr. Ryan Denison.

Detailing the degree to which Americans are less proud to be American has become something

of an annual tradition around this time of the year.

And in keeping with that trend, a recent poll found that a record low 58% of U.S. adults

are either extremely 41% or very 17% proud to be American. While those

numbers represent a fairly significant drop, even from recent years, the downward trajectory

doesn't change the fact that nearly four out of five Americans are at least moderately proud to be a citizen of

this country. Moreover, nine out of ten hold at least some measure of pride in that status.

When we think about the state of our culture, it would be a mistake to let the 10% who hold

no such pride outweigh the 90% who do.

At the same time, it's worth noting that younger generations tend to be quite a bit more

moderate in their pride for the nation than their elders.

As the Gallup report notes, these changes have occurred mostly over the past decade

and have done so amid greater pessimism about the economic prospects for young people,

widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, greater ideological divides between parties,

unfavorable images of both parties, and intense rancor during the Trump and Biden administrations.

In quote, in short, fear and anger have become the default setting for far too many people,

and it makes sense that those without a longer history of what it's like to live in America

would be more impacted by those feelings.

It may be tempting to dismiss many of these concerns,

...