First in a series of articles on the United States and the issues that make us a nation.
Key Takeaways
As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, a paradox sits at the center of American public life: voters revere the founding documents more than almost anything else in politics, and simultaneously believe the country is abandoning them.
The survey data is striking in its clarity. More than four-in-five registered voters affirm that the core principles of the Declaration of Independence equality, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness remain relevant today. This is not a narrow majority or a partisan lean. It is a consensus figure that holds across demographic lines — the kind of number that rarely appears in modern polling on any subject. Americans are not ambivalent about their founding ideals. They claim them emphatically.
And yet nearly two-in-three of those same voters believe the country is moving further away from those principles, not closer. Only a small fraction roughly one-in-six see the nation trending in the right direction on this question. The gap between reverence and reality is enormous, and it carries a specific emotional charge heading into the celebration of America at 250: Americans feel they are losing something they still deeply value.