When I was watching Pope Francis’ funeral on TV today I was very moved by the beautiful panikhída memorial service offered by the patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic churches.
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I spent the morning teaching, but I’m watching the playback of the funeral now. Church history is long, and there will be many centuries to determine the legacy of Francis, but now we lay the Holy Father, the successor of St Peter, to rest and there is only prayer and hope in the resurrection. May God bless him and let His light shine upon him, and may He welcome him into the kingdom. Ora pro eo.
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Pope Francis was buried today. We still have a duty to pray for his soul. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
When I read McConnell's claim that "American pride was at its lowest point in 20 years", I was skeptical. So I googled it (https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx). Turns out he's right about the measure of American pride. Gallup's poll shows that pride in America was remarkably steady from 2000 through 2016 - hovering around 80-85% year after year. Until Trump took office. Then national pride fell 20 points in 3 years. I wonder why?
JR, do you think that in addition to the Trump Effect, the Pandemic Effect figured into Gallup's poll reflecting American's pride in country? Life was as lousy at it gets in the USA and there were so many deaths. Trump and the Pandemic are inextricably tied - how can you separate the two?
The decline in pride numbers started in 2017. By the time the pandemicbegan it had dropped 20 points.
Many Canadians view America as a country brimming with self-confidence that would easily swell to arrogance at propitious moments (eg the Dream Team of NBA stars at the Olympics in Atlanta), expressed in the insufferable USA, USA, USA chants. There was a periodically renewed debate within our country as to whether we were too self-effacing and would do well to adopt at least some of the attitude Americans had to their country. We did adopt a more “take no prisoners” style in our government-in…
I appreciate your thoughtful analysis. From what I’ve seen, American confidence (not quite the same thing as pride) on the international stage has ebbed and flowed over the past 60 years. Viet Nam seriously dented America’s confidence, followed by the double whammy of the OPEC oil embargoes. Confidence sprang back under Reagan, re-enforced by the falling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It remained strong through the Clinton years, and actually rose after 2001, as Americ…
I love this comment. I suppose that there could be reliable tracking by polls which illustrate your thesis. At an intellectual level, it makes tremendous sense to me. I would put in two further comments to ponder. The first is that 9/11 was an incredibly successful attack on American soil, considerably more impactful than the difficult periods - Vietnam, the OPEC crises, the Trump era - that you explained. 9/11 was a terrorism event that was shock and awe in a way the world had never seen …
Okay, don’t believe it. Your feelings outweigh the data.
Are you really satisfied with such a flip answer? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/americans-1950s-poll_n_580fcf0be4b08582f88c9575
Report on a 2016 poll - a time at which 81% of Americans say they are extremely/very proud to be American. The poll at the link above shows that 74% of Americans believe the country to be on the wrong track. 44% say it has been so for a long time - dating back to the Fifties.
Is this poll dispositive? I make no claims so. But the book I have been researching and writi…
My original post was exploring the point McConnell made, that "pride in America has fallen significantly". I wondered where that came from - was there data or did he just make it up. I found that indeed, there are polls measuring "American pride" with data going back 20 years or more. And that the measure of people who are proud or very proud has been remarkably steady, until Trump, at which point it fell. You expanded the discussion with some interesting observations, which are fun to read and think about, but which had little to do with my original point or the data from polls measuring American pride.
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May 5, 2021
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12:26 PM