Can the Declaration of Independence’s Ideals Hold America Together?

Can America stay together? It’s a question that seems less abstract each year as red and blue states diverge on fundamental issues, like whether citizens have the right to travel (to obtain an abortion where it’s legal, for instance) or to cast a ballot (if it’s likely to be for an opposition party), or if a presidential election loser should suffer consequences should they launch a coup attempt to retain power.

If you think we should—and I’d argue we must for a whole bunch of reasons—then we’re going to need a basis to move forward, a mission statement for the country the vast majority of us can support, one that can trump the ethnonationalist, authoritarian and increasing fascistic MAGA narrative.

As I argued in the Monthly, in a piece written on the eve of the 1/6 coup, we need to rediscover and renew our civic national narrative, the one that commits us as Americans to uphold one another’s natural rights as laid out in the Declaration of Independence: to survive, to not be tyrannized, to pursue our happiness as we each understand it, and to have equal access to the consensual self-government that makes it possible. It’s the American story articulated in Frederick Douglass’s speeches, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s 1963 oration at the March on Washington.

But is that even possible?

I believe it is, which is why I founded Nationhood Lab, a research project at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, which is working to develop, test, and help disseminate just such a rebooted narrative of national origins, purpose, and belonging. Last month, we completed our first national poll to gauge where Americans stand on the issue. The results were more encouraging than I’d expected.

With our partners, Embold Research, we asked registered voters which statements about the nature of the U.S. they most agreed with. We offered statement pairs about our national purpose, American identity, and the meaning of our past; in each case, one was keyed off the ideals in the Declaration, the other rooted in more intrinsic characteristics like ancestry, heritage, character, and values. We wrote each to sound as attractive as possible, and I actually expected the heritage/character versions to win, if only because they seemed more concrete than pledging loyalty to abstract ideals. But the civic ones proved far more attractive regardless of gender, age, race, education, or region.

Sixty-three percent of Americans preferred the statement that we are united “not by a shared religion or ancestry or history, but by our shared commitment to a set of American founding ideals: that we all have inherent and equal rights to live, to not be tyrannized, and to pursue happiness as we each understand it” over one embraced by 33 percent of respondents that said we are united “by shared history, traditions, and values and by our fortitude and character as Americans, a people who value hard work, individual responsibility, and national loyalty.”

Fifty-six percent of respondents said they agreed more with a statement that Americans “are duty-bound to defend one another’s inherent rights” and have a shared commitment “to building a more free, just, and equal nation” over one that said we “are duty-bound to defend our culture, interests, and way of life” and are committed “to building a more free, prosperous, and secure nation,” which was preferred by 36 percent of the survey participants.

A third statement pair probed respondents’ views on the meaning of America’s past. Fifty-four percent preferred the one arguing that “Freedom, justice, and equality are ideals each generation must fight for” and that “we must reckon with our shortcomings, take pride in our advances, and pledge ourselves to make our Union more perfect.” The alternate statement, chosen by 40 percent of those surveyed, said, “Security, individual liberties, and respect for our founding values are the heritage each generation must fight for” and that “we must defend our nation, take pride in our history, and pledge ourselves to make our Union more perfect.”

This survey of 1567 Americans, completed in early April, found the civic, ideals-based definitions of the U.S. were preferred by nearly every demographic category, including men, women, whites, Blacks, Latinos, people with and without college educations, and across all generations. The major exceptions were Republicans and those who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

In the first pair of statements described above, Republicans and Trump voters both chose the more restrictive narrative emphasizing tradition, loyalty, and intrinsic characteristics over the Declaration’s ideals by a 7 percent margin. In the second statement pair, the margin was 24 percent for Republicans and 26 percent for Trump voters. Democrats preferred the first civic statement by a 61-point margin and the second by 62. Independents also favored the civic statements by a 39-point margin for the first statement and 14 for the second.

Young people were most committed to civic ideals, with 18-to-24-year-olds preferring them in the first statement pair by a 34 percent margin and 25-to-49-year-olds by a staggering 52 percent. Older Americans’ support was softer: a 20-percent margin for those aged 50-64 and just 17 percent for those 65 and older.

Many of you may know me as the author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, a book about North American regionalism that identifies historically based regions that often don’t respect state or even international boundaries. You can read a synopsis here—and a deeper description in this Washington Monthly story—to appreciate that our poll found majorities preferred all three civic statements in every regional culture with one exception (Deep Southerners chose the heritage-based history narrative by 1 point.) In all cases, the Deep South had the softest support. The Far West had the strongest backing for the civic version in the first statement pair (on our shared purpose) with a 33-percent margin. At the same time (the new incarnation of) Tidewater was the strongest on the second (based on shared identity), by 59.

Embold Research conducted the poll for Nationhood Lab from March 28 to April 2. The modeled margin of error was +/- 3.0 percent. We shared full topline results and Embold’s statement of methodology here.

We’re currently conducting deep-dive qualitative research to perfect our civic national story scripts. When we finish our work and polling this summer, we’ll be eager to share it with all interested parties, so feel free to reach out to us here.