Why don't more Americans know why we celebrate July 4? | Opinion
As America marks its 250th birthday on July 4, I want to make a radical suggestion: All Americans should read the Declaration of Independence.
Maybe it's the English major in me. But there's something to be said for reading these words yourself. Not enough of us are.
An alarming number of Americans have lost touch with our founding in 1776 and the principles of freedom and liberty our Founding Fathers laid out in the declaration ‒ principles later fortified in the U.S. Constitution.
You can't love or preserve what you don't know.
My concern is that as Americans lose that connection with why we became a country in the first place, we'll become more tempted to change it in fundamental ways. The growing popularity of socialism is one example. More on that shortly.
'We are a unique nation'
"It's really hard to be supportive of a country or your system of government if you don't understand it," Judge Michael Warren, who sits on a Michigan circuit court, told me.
Warren recently wrote a book, "The Revolutionary Words that Forged America: The Definitive Guide to the Declaration of Independence," offering a line-by-line analysis of the document.
"It is the fundamental charter of our nation and of our freedom," the judge said. "We are a unique nation. I consider us to be a miracle in the course of human history. And that is in part because we established a government based on founding first principles, as opposed to nationalities or common religion or ethnic groups."
Those principles ‒ rule of law, individual liberty, limited government ‒ laid the groundwork for our country's success.
What happens if we stop caring about those principles, or don't know about them in the first place?
Americans are flunking civics. Big time.
In researching this column, I was surprised to learn just how little U.S. citizens know about the country and our government. A poll from the Cato Institute, released ahead of Independence Day in 2025, highlighted this dearth of basic knowledge: 53% of Americans don't even know why we celebrate the Fourth of July, and more than a third don't know there are three branches of government.
Plenty of other polls show similar trends.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation found in 2024 that over 70% of registered voters surveyed failed a basic civics literacy quiz covering topics like the three branches of government, the number of Supreme Court justices and "other basic functions of our democracy." Only half could correctly name the branch of government that makes laws.
A 2024 study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that among college students, only 31% knew James Madison was the "Father of the Constitution," and 60% didn't know the term lengths of members of Congress.
As we forget our founding principles, socialism will rise
Given this disconnect with what our country is about and how our government works, it's no shock that democratic socialism is having a real moment, especially with young people.
Socialism – which holds that government or the community, rather than the individual, should control property and resources – is fundamentally at odds with the Declaration of Independence. The founders believed our rights are inherent to the individual, not granted by the state, and they were extremely wary of giving government more power than necessary.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's rise – and his recent success helping fellow democratic socialists win their Democratic primaries – should serve as a warning about what happens when Americans lose touch with our founding principles.
A 2025 Axios-Generation Lab poll of U.S. college students found that 67% have a positive or neutral view of the word "socialism." Only 40% felt the same about "capitalism."
Failing to educate the next generation in basic civic knowledge, it's no wonder they're turning to more radical, anti-American ideas.
"For decades, we have stopped asking students to locate themselves inside a shared civic narrative," writes Samuel J. Abrams, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The result, he argues, "is that many young Americans reach adulthood with little sense that they belong to a long national story of striving, sacrifice and responsibility.
The future of the country is at risk if we don't understand what has made it the best in the world.
This July Fourth, take a moment with your family and read the words that set the American experiment in motion.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why don't more Americans know why we celebrate July 4? | Opinion
Reporting by Ingrid Jacques, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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This story was originally published July 1, 2026 at 4:07 AM.