Americans left and right are worried about a loss of national identity

The White House
(Image credit: Mandel Ngan/Getty Images)

Americans across the political spectrum are worried that the United States is losing a fundamental national identity, a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed Sunday. Seven in 10 Americans say America is losing track of "the beliefs and values the country represents," and that concern holds true across party lines.

Of course, the nature of that national identity is much more controversial. Republicans are likely to cite "culture grounded in Christian beliefs and the traditions of early European immigrants," the AP reports, while Democrats "point to the country's history of mixing of people from around the globe." A majority of self-identified members of both major parties valued the American "tradition of offering refuge to the persecuted."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.