Hey guys, welcome to relatable happy Monday. This is post pregnancy. Ali speaking to you. I am not that quite yet. I'll be back tomorrow for the first fresh episode.

Talking about all the craziness that's gone over the past couple months, but for today, I'm going to play you a repeat of the fourth of July episode that I did last year just talking about how much I love America. I hope you guys had fun celebrating America and our freedom over the weekend.

And so this episode is going to be about that. And of course, my favorite holiday, the fourth of July. And then I will be back tomorrow with a fresh new episode in my studio to talk to you about all of the good stuff that you guys have been wanting to talk about for the past three months.

So I will see you guys then, but until then enjoy this vintage fourth of July episode.

Hey guys, welcome to relatable happy Friday. We have a very special episode for you today since tomorrow is July 4th. We are going to talk about why America is so awesome. And I think that this is a message that is probably more needed than ever right now.

So if you've been listening to me for any amount of time, you probably have heard me say that the fourth of July is my favorite holiday. And before I get any accusations from people saying that I am idolizing America more than I love Jesus because I like fourth of July over Christmas or Easter.

It is not because I am prioritizing America or my patriotism over the birth of Christ or the resurrection. I care about those things obviously more than I care about the United States. Those are more much more significant significant events than the founding of the United States of America.

It is just the celebration of these holidays that I am comparing here. And I like the celebration of the fourth of July because of the atmosphere because of the season that it's in summer is my favorite season.

And just because of all of the different things that go along with celebrating the fourth of July, it's just a fun atmosphere. It's a fun holiday to celebrate. Of course, I do love America. And I do love the reasons that we're celebrating it, but not even in the same light year of the celebration of Jesus. I just want to make that clear.

I do love the fourth of July. I do love America. I've always loved America when I sing the star-spangled banner when I pledge allegiance to the flag. I get Terry just because we are so incredibly blessed to live in this wonderfully free country. Are we perfect? No. And we're going to talk about that a little bit today.

It's important for us to be able to see our country and see our history and see our present state in the right way through a truthful lens. And so that's what we're going to do today. I hope that you finished this episode feeling so excited to celebrate the fourth of July this weekend with your family even as you might be looking out your window and seeing chaos wage it all around you.

And maybe your questioning your own patriotism, your questioning whether or not this really is a great place to live or whether we really are fundamentally good country based on good ideals and ideals. This episode is for you. If you have not noticed, which I'm sure you have, especially

in this podcast, a lot of Americans and unprecedented number of Americans, I was a do not feel that gratitude for American freedom or pride in American accomplishment. If you talk to, for example, a professor at an elite university or especially a student of one of those professors, you will probably hear them say that America is inherently

politically evil. In fact, we are the most evil nation on earth that we are built on white supremacy that we are a wicked imperialist force and that all international turmoil in the modern day can be traced back to American aggression. That might be what you hear from a number of professors and college students and recent college grads.

A Gallup poll came out last year tracing patriotism among self identified Republicans and Democrats from 2001 to 2019 and I think the findings are really interesting. In 2001, 64% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats were, quote, extremely proud to be an American.

That number shot up by 2003 86% of Republicans 65% of Democrats. So the vast majority of both parties dropped slightly for both parties after that by 2013 71% of Republicans and 56% of Democrats were extremely proud to be an American that still majority of both parties.

And then something amazing and a very sad sense to me happened, especially among Democrats from 2013 to 2017. That sense of patriotism or the feeling of being extremely proud in the words of these of this poll. It dropped 13 points.

42 43% that's amazing to me that their patriotism and the Democratic Party dropped while their favorite president was in office. And what's interesting is that if you look at other, there's another Pew research study that I cite a lot polarization and politics and it's from 2017.

The Democratic Party moved left on every issue while Barack Obama was in office. So if you look at the views of the Democratic Party on things like race and welfare and immigration and the second amendment from 1990 to 2017, the biggest change, the biggest shift to the left for the Democratic Party was while Barack Obama was in president.

And it coincides with I can't say that, you know, I can't say unequivocally that it correlates to, but it coincides with this lowering of patriotism while he was in office. Now in 2019, it is down to 22%. Only 22% of Democrats and it probably is less now in 2020 are extremely proud to be an American according to this Gallup poll. Whereas 76% of self identifying Republicans are not going to be able to do this.

And the same thing is that the United States is still proud to be an American. So there is a big divide in how we see the country and it's due to, as I'll talk about in a little bit, really a world view divide.

So that fewer and fewer people believe that America is the greatest country in the world. This is this idea of American exceptionalism. 38% believed that America is the greatest country in the world in 2011. The vast majority believed that it's at least one of the best countries in the world.

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