Poll finds faith in country has shrunk
Is the United States the greatest country in the world?
The Fourth of July arrives at a moment of reckoning, a time that a deadly pandemic rages, racial protests are in the streets, the economy has plunged into recession and a brutal presidential reelection race looms.
A USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll taken just before the holiday that celebrates the nation’s independence finds a sharp divide on that question along partisan and ideological lines.
At this moment, one-third of those surveyed, 32%, called the United States “the greatest country in the world,” and another 28% said it was “one of the greatest” – a 60% majority asserting American greatness.
Not everyone was as sanguine: 12% of those surveyed said the United States was “an average country,” and 24% said it “has fallen behind the other major countries of the world.” Three percent said it was “one of the worst.”
There is a partisan split on this question. Almost 9 of 10 Trump voters, 87%, said the United States was the greatest or one of the greatest countries in the world. Almost 6 in 10 Biden voters, 59%, said it was average, has fallen behind or is one of the worst.
Among other demographic factors, there was also a difference along racial lines. White Americans were more likely than Black Americans to say the United States was “the greatest country,” 35% compared with 20%. African Americans were more likely than whites to say the country had “fallen behind,” 35% compared with 22%.
Attitudes toward the current president seem to be shaping views. A solid majority of Republicans and conservatives said the United States is the greatest country in the world. They like the direction Trump has taken the nation during his 31⁄2 years in office.
But Democrats and liberals are alarmed by many of Trump’s actions.
They believe the country is moving in the wrong direction.
In the survey, two-thirds of Americans, 67%, said the country was on the wrong track; just 20% said it was headed in the right direction. In a head-to-head match-up, Biden led Trump by 12 percentage points, 53%41%, although the president had a significant edge in the enthusiasm of his supporters.
The USA TODAY/Suffolk poll of 1,000 registered voters was taken by landline and cellphone June 25-29. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Jacob Walker, 44, a political independent from Auburn, California, saw the approaching holiday as a moment for reflection.
“I think we’ve never been as great as we thought we are,” the school administrator said in a follow-up phone interview. “Yet at the same time, our ideals are really good ones. One of the things that I really liked about the Fourth of July is that, you know, most countries celebrate independence like when they win a war.”
But this holiday celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “That’s a declaration of a concept that all humans are created equal,” he said. “That’s pretty powerful, and even if we don’t live up to that, still, we have an ideal.”