Poll results

Missing their country: 71 percent of Americans say U.S. losing its national identity

There was an underlying sense of foreboding among Republican voters during the 2016 election. Many said they no longer recognized America, or complained that they “want their country back.” Now we have some numbers.

Much of the nation agrees with this: “Seven out of 10 Americans think the United States is losing its national identity, while just 3 in 10 regard the country’s identity as secure, and these attitudes are related to threats to that identity and pride in several aspects of the country,” reports a new Associated Press survey, which cites three points in particular:

“Forty-seven percent say illegal immigration is threatening to the American way of life, and 15 percent think legal immigration threatens it. Seventy-one percent say the United States is losing its national identity — that is the beliefs and values the country represents,” the AP advised. “Fifty-seven percent say the United States should be a country with an essential culture that immigrants adopt when they arrive, and 42 percent think the culture of the country should change when new people arrive.”