The United States turns 250 next year, and close to half the country has no idea what the birthday party is about. A new national survey from the Cato Institute and Morning Consult found that 46 percent of American adults could not correctly identify that the 250th anniversary commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Only 53 percent got the answer right.
The numbers are worse among the youngest adults. Nearly 61 percent of Generation Z respondents failed the same question, as Just the News reported. That means roughly six in ten young Americans headed into the semiquincentennial cannot name the event it marks.
The survey polled 2,253 adults nationwide. Its findings paint a split picture: broad patriotism and reverence for the Constitution on one side, deep civic ignorance and growing ideological drift on the other, particularly among the young and among Democrats.
For all the hand-wringing about declining love of country, the Cato data suggest most Americans still feel it. Eighty-six percent said they are grateful to be Americans. Seventy-nine percent said they are proud. And 76 percent hold a favorable view of the nation's founding.
Those topline numbers cut across party lines. More than 81 percent of Democrats and 86 percent of Republicans reported favorable views of the founding. Seventy-two percent of Democrats and 83 percent of Republicans said the principles the Founders established remain relevant today.
Emily Ekins, vice president for policy at the Cato Institute, told the New York Post that the results challenge a popular media narrative.
"Americans are a lot more patriotic than people realize. People are more on the same page than people realize."
Ekins added a pointed observation about who is driving the perception that Americans have soured on their own country.
"There is a small subset that is increasingly getting loud that has these really negative views of the country, but they're really a small subset that have a megaphone in media."
That megaphone matters. When a vocal minority in newsrooms and on campuses treats the founding as something to apologize for, it shapes what younger Americans absorb, and the Gen Z numbers in this survey suggest the message is landing.
The generational data are the survey's sharpest warning. Beyond the 61 percent who could not identify what America 250 celebrates, more than half of Gen Z respondents expressed favorable views of socialism. Nearly four in ten viewed communism favorably, rates the Cato survey described as far higher than those of older generations, though specific comparison figures were not published.
Those attitudes did not develop in a vacuum. They are the downstream product of an education system that has steadily replaced civic instruction with ideological frameworks. When students spend more time on the 1619 Project than on the Declaration of Independence, it should surprise no one that they cannot name the document their country's birthday honors.
At the same time, 54 percent of Gen Z respondents still described themselves as at least moderately patriotic, and only 9 percent said they were not patriotic at all. The instinct is there. The knowledge is not, and without knowledge, instinct is easy to manipulate.
The contrast between those two realities, young Americans who feel some attachment to their country but cannot articulate what it stands for, and who simultaneously find socialism and communism appealing, is the clearest indictment of what has gone wrong in American civics education.
The survey exposed sharp partisan divides beneath the surface agreement on the founding's importance. Republicans were far more likely than Democrats, 76 percent to 53 percent, to say America remains a "land of opportunity." That 23-point gap reflects fundamentally different views of whether the country's core promise still holds.
On the question of whether preserving slavery was a primary reason for the American Revolution, a central claim of the 1619 Project, 46 percent of Democrats agreed, compared with 36 percent of Republicans. The New York Times has used America's 250th birthday to recast the Revolution itself, and that revisionist framing has clearly found an audience on the left.
Democrats were also more likely to support expanding the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices, 51 percent compared with 37 percent of Republicans. And 61 percent of Democrats said they would support candidates identifying as "Democratic Socialists." The Republican figure on that question was not published.
These are not minor differences. They reflect a growing divide over whether the constitutional structure the Founders built should be preserved, reformed, or replaced. When a majority of one party's voters are open to court-packing and socialist-identified candidates, the argument is no longer about policy tweaks. It is about the system itself.
The survey's most sobering findings may be the ones that cross party lines. Fifty-seven percent of Americans said the country has moved away from its founding principles. Fifty-six percent fear America could lose its freedom within the next 50 years.
Those are not fringe anxieties. They represent clear majorities who believe the republic is on an unsustainable path. And the Cato Institute survey found that Americans identified corruption, abuse of power, and politicians ignoring constitutional limits among the greatest threats to the republic, though specific percentages for those items were not released.
Seventy-two percent said presidents should obey Supreme Court rulings even when they disagree. Fifty-eight percent said no political party should ever be trusted with too much power. Nearly 86 percent called the Constitution important for protecting rights and freedoms, and 82 percent said it has been essential to America's prosperity.
In other words, the public still believes in the framework. They just doubt that the people running the country do. Justice Clarence Thomas has warned that progressivism is replacing America's founding principles, and these numbers suggest a broad swath of the country shares that concern, even if they would not frame it in the same terms.
The survey found a striking optimism gap between the parties. Fifty-four percent of Republicans said the nation's best days are ahead. Forty-four percent of Democrats said America's best days are behind it. That divide tracks with the broader pattern: Republicans tend to see a country worth defending and restoring; a significant share of Democrats see one that needs fundamental transformation.
The Cato data also touched on what Americans want their children to learn. Respondents ranked priorities for children's education, though the survey writeup did not publish the full list with percentages. What the findings make clear is that whatever Americans say they want from schools, the schools are not delivering basic civic literacy.
A country where 46 percent of adults and 61 percent of young adults cannot identify the founding event their nation is about to celebrate has an education problem, not a patriotism problem. The patriotism is still there, 86 percent grateful, 79 percent proud. The knowledge that sustains it is eroding.
President Trump's recent call for national renewal at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library speaks to this moment. Renewal requires more than sentiment. It requires citizens who know what they are renewing.
Ekins's observation about a loud minority with a media megaphone deserves more attention than it will probably get. The Cato survey confirms that anti-American sentiment is a niche position. Only 2 percent of respondents said they were not at all grateful to be Americans. The overwhelming majority, across age, party, and background, expressed pride and gratitude.
But that majority is quiet. The minority that views the founding as a crime, the Constitution as an obstacle, and socialism as the future is concentrated in the institutions that shape public discourse: universities, legacy media, and social media platforms. Their influence on Gen Z is measurable in this survey.
When a Democratic congressional candidate in California turns her back on the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance, she is acting on the same impulse that leads 46 percent of Democrats to accept the 1619 Project's rewriting of the Revolution. The gesture is dramatic. The underlying shift in belief is the real problem.
Meanwhile, the kind of civic spirit that once defined American life persists in quieter places, in communities where two young brothers in Minnesota raise tens of thousands of dollars for veterans from a lemonade stand. That instinct does not come from a curriculum. But it cannot survive indefinitely without one.
The Cato survey's methodology details, margin of error, fielding dates, question wording, were not published in the initial release, and those gaps matter for a full assessment. But the broad strokes are consistent with years of declining civics scores and rising ideological confusion among young Americans.
The country does not have a patriotism crisis. It has a knowledge crisis dressed up as a values debate. When more than half of Gen Z cannot name the Declaration of Independence but can express a favorable view of socialism, the failure is institutional. Schools, universities, and cultural gatekeepers have spent a generation teaching young Americans to be skeptical of their country without first teaching them what their country is.
The 250th anniversary is a year away. The question is whether the nation will use it to remember what it was founded on, or let the loudest voices in the room tell a different story.
A country that forgets what it celebrates will eventually forget why it's worth celebrating at all.
