What’s wrong with today’s youth?
In previous generations, the rebellious youth were always a topic of consternation for the old folks. They don’t listen! They drive too fast and talk too loud. They wear funny clothes and don’t respect their teachers.
But something has changed in the last few years that should have the older generations far more worried than they would have been in the past.
A recent Morning Consult poll found that only 16 percent of Gen Z’ers are proud to live in the United States. Millennials were only somewhat saner at 36 percent.
These numbers should set off alarm bells. In the last ten years, there has been a sharp decline in national pride. It is not an accident. It’s a deliberate attempt by the left to destroy American patriotism and replace it with their ideology. In 2013, 85 percent of Americans said "extremely or very" proud to be American. Today that number is 63 percent. It wasn’t until 2016 that that number ever dipped below 80 percent, sometimes being in the high 80s and 90s. That’s a collapse.
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This is not an accident. The indoctrination happening in our schools have resulted in this kind of opinion among the young.
The numbers show a complete lack of knowledge of the rest of the world. What the kids are learning in school in the U.S. is that the freest country in the history of humanity, the country that has set the example for democracy and for freedom and has been a beacon of hope to people all over the world is meh, not that great.
The kind of privilege that it takes to hold that opinion is mind-boggling. It means this person was taught to believe that the immense advantages that they have through the sheer luck of being American are not that important. They do not know the struggle people across the world still go through to be free or how desperately people want to be Americans. The haters were taught to take for granted the freedom and liberty that is their birthright.
In the last few years the left has successfully taken over curriculums in public schools across the country. They push the idea that America is just not that great. They force the 1619 Project onto curriculums. They remove discussion of the founding fathers or of American history in general. All education is geared at the idea that America is a terrible place.
Aside from being wrong, it’s deeply myopic. The people who push this idea think they are worldly. But worldliness involves knowing something about other countries and not being so shortsighted about your own. These are people born on third base and thinking they’ve hit a triple.
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Deep down, Americans are a very patriotic people. Yes, even the young people. But they’ve gotten to where admitting it is not permitted. Millennials and Generation Z are the first generations raised with "cancel culture," and with that a forced conformity of thought. To break with the pack, with your teachers, and say that America isn’t just great but the greatest, is simply not allowed. Wrongthink can lead to bad grades or harassment by their peers. It will take some bravery for the young people to overcome what is happening to them. And it will take standing up for ideas they know to be true but have been told so long that they are not.
More than that, it will take the older generations doing more than just tsk-tsking these kinds of numbers. They have to educate the young people in their homes or in their lives about the miracle that is the American experiment. The miracle needs maintaining, and it needs a continued effort to ensure its success. Cancel culture and the push of leftist conformity will be destroyed eventually. The older generations have to be in the fight, and can’t just give up on the youth to make that happen.
