By Richard D. Kahlenberg
The key rationale for public education in the United States is, in the words of educator Albert Shanker, to “teach children what it means to be an American.” By that, he meant the shared values found in documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This practice serves two purposes: it transmits an appreciation for the values of liberal democracy, which are not inborn and need to be taught to each generation anew; and it provides the glue necessary to hold together a people of astonishingly different racial, ethnic, religious, economic, and ideological backgrounds.
By this measure, educators need to be doing a better job. In a 2023 YouGov poll, 31% of youth ages 18-29 agreed that “Democracy is no longer a viable system, and Americans should explore alternative forms of government” (compared to only 5% of those over 65). Likewise, a 2025 Gallup survey showed just 53% of those ages 18-29 agreed that “democracy is the best form of government,” compared with 80% of older Americans. As Danielle Allen of Harvard University put it: “You can’t have a democracy unless people want one. And right now, the kids don’t particularly want a democracy.”
Young Americans are also less bound together by a common pride in their country. In a 2023 Gallup poll, only 18% of 18- to 34-year-olds said they were “extremely proud to be American,” compared with 50% of adults over 55.5 A recent Democracy Fund poll asked Americans if the Founders were better described as “heroes” or “villains.” Only one in 10 Baby Boomers said “villains,” while four in ten Gen Z respondents did.
Given the stark generational divide that has emerged over a commitment to democracy and belief in America, it’s particularly inspiring to read the three essays of young Americans found in this report.
In this, the 250th year since the nation’s founding, the American Identity Project of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) partnered with its sister organization, the Center for New Liberalism (CNL), to sponsor a nationwide essay contest on what it means to be an American today. The American Identity Project, whose advisory board is co-chaired by David Brooks and William Galston, is making recommendations about how to strengthen a shared American identity in an era of deep division. The Center for New Liberalism is a grassroots organization of young pragmatic liberals with more than 80 local chapters worldwide.
The three winners of the contest — Jaxon Shealy (a Gen Z, originally from Coppell, Texas, and now living in Washington D.C.), Edward Weinberg (a millennial, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), and Armond Halbert (a millennial, of Chicago, Illinois) — offer heartfelt and stirring accounts that embody a reflective (rather than knee-jerk) American patriotism.
Shealy speaks to the special role of immigrants in shaping what it means to be an American. Over the years, as immigration quotas were abolished, “it became possible for nearly anyone on Earth to become an American, a feature unique to our national identity.” He tells the story of his great-grandfather, who fled religious persecution in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to begin “a life where opportunity outpaced subordination, civil protections existed for religion and free speech, and freedom stood as the highest virtue.” America had (and has) its problems and its tensions, but the liberal democratic system “channeled conflict into argument rather than bloodshed.”
Weinberg, paradoxically, discovered what it means to be an American by moving abroad. He had thought of himself primarily as a writer, a Jew, and a resident of New Jersey; he “didn’t know I was American until I moved to Vietnam.” There, when he told residents he came from the United States, “their eyes would light up. They wanted to study there. They had a cousin there. They loved the TV show Friends.” Having traveled to 40 countries, Weinberg says no one “better integrates as many different cultures as the U.S.,” by incorporating minority voices into the national dialogue rather than crushing dissent. The U.S. can and should teach about our nation’s crimes in school, Weinberg says, but also that it’s a country that has saved millions of lives annually through its aid programs.
Halbert, meanwhile, reflects upon how being the son of a U.S. military officer helped teach him what it means to be an American. His father served in the Air Force for 30 years and swore loyalty not to any president, but to the country. It’s a lesson all of us should take in, Halbert says, especially when our chosen candidate for the nation’s chief executive loses. “Democracy is not a single moment of victory or defeat,” he writes, “but an ongoing conversation among citizens about the kind of society we want to build together.”
Taken together, the three essays remind us that an abiding patriotism can be found in the Democratic as well as the Republican Party. And yet that is not how the public sees it. Democrats suffer a patriotism deficit in American politics. A November 2024 PPI poll found working-class voters believed Republicans were the more patriotic party by a 19-point margin.
Shealy, Weinberg, and Halbert offer a positive vision from which Democrats, and all Americans, can learn. Indeed, we hope these essays will spark broader discussions among young people and Americans of all ages about what it means to be an American. To that end, this report’s afterword, written by CNL’s cofounder and director, Colin Mortimer, lays out some specific plans for how the conversation can continue throughout the 250th anniversary of our country, and beyond.
