How would you answer if your cell rang and a Gallup pollster was on the other end, asking if you were proud to be an American?

Without hesitation, I’d say “extremely proud.” Sadly, I’d be joined by only 38% of my fellow Americans according to a poll conducted last month. Another 27% told Gallup they were “very proud,” though, bringing the total of proud Americans to 65%.

Among Democrats, only 26% said they were extremely proud to be Americans.

Figures.

Gallup has been asking this question of us since 2001. This year’s numbers are disheartening.

Blame can be directed at many sources: schools teaching kids to hate America’s founding principles,  a lack of civics education in the general population - which has resulted, for instance, in a total misunderstanding of recent Supreme Court decisions - relentless carping about racism by the legacy media, opportunistic politicians pushing woke agendas and finally, our president and the lefties who are pulling his strings.

They had to be behind his insane statement last weekend:

“My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril.

Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product . And do it now.”

Wait, Mr. President, I thought high gas prices were the fault of Putin, Putin, Putin?

Biden’s rotating blame game prompted Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post to scold:

“Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this. It’s either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics”

Memo to Biden: When you lose Bezos, you’re finished.

One group was happy with Biden’s anti-American sentient, though. His good friends, the Chinese. In fact, Chen Weihua, of Chinese state-affiliated media, was gleeful:

“Now US President finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation. He didn’t believe this before.”

It’s this sort of discourse, Biden’s constant refusal to accept responsibility for the economy, for his over-reaching government agencies and for his willingness to trash the American Supreme Court while overseas that contributes in a major way to a lack of pride in being American.

On Independence Day, however, many of us get goosebumps thinking about the Founding Fathers who knew that when they affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence they could be signing their own death warrants. And think about the brave members of the Continental Army who fought, despite sickness and freezing temperatures, to drive the British from our soil.

Some of us are proud of the men who fought the Civil War to preserve our union, the soldiers in World War I who fought in the trenches of Europe, the heroes who stormed the beaches at Normandy in World War II, the draftees who were sent to Southeast Asia in Korea and Vietnam only to be spit upon back home by those who were not proud to be Americans.

I’m proud of the all-volunteer military members who died and were maimed in the wars since 9-11 to try to stamp out terrorism and those who enlist today to keep us free.

I am proud of Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a bus and Martin Luther King who marched to end discrimination.

I’m proud of the men and women who farm our land, those who drive the produce to market and those who worked through the pandemic to keep the stores open and food on the shelves so America could eat.

I’m proud of my 6-year-old granddaughter who heard the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner at the beginning of the Super Bowl and immediately stood at attention, her right hand on her heart.

My prayer is that 20 years from now, if Gallup calls her, she’ll reply - without hesitation - that she’s extremely proud to be an American.

And I hope she won’t be in the minority.