Fewer Than Half Of Americans Can Name The Three Branches Of Their Government

 

The most recent Annenberg Public Policy Center annual Constitution Day Civics Survey found that fewer than half of Americans can name all three branches of government — executive, legislative, and judicial — a drop off of 9 percentage points from just one year ago. (This is likely because a larger percentage of Americans attend “institutions of higher learning” than ever before. I’m not joking.) At this rate, no one will be able to achieve this remarkable feat by 2028. This is doubly sad when one realizes that nearly every single child in the country possessed this fundamental knowledge by the age 12 or 14 50 years ago. And 100 years ago. And 150 years ago. Whether they went to school in a large city or in a one-room schoolhouse on a midwestern prairie.  

Perhaps even more mind boggling, roughly a quarter of Americans surveyed could not name a single branch of the federal government.

Perhaps even more disturbing, the survey showed an increase in the number of respondents who were unable to name any of the five freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution. (Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and to petition the government.) Just over one quarter of respondents were at a loss to name even one First Amendment freedom. In the previous survey, conducted in 2021, 56 percent of respondents identified freedom of religion, compared to only 24 percent in 2022. In 2021, half of the respondents noted freedom of the press, as opposed to only 20 percent in 2022.

Is it any wonder, then, that government is denying those freedoms and treating citizens with the wrong political opinions like “terrorists” or “enemies of the state,” openly labeling them as such? 

Governments around the world used the plandemic pandemic as a trial run to see how far they could push their citizens…and were nearly universally pleased at the result. That Americans allowed themselves to be so brutalized is as shocking as it is depressing.

Thomas Jefferson famously said that he would prefer a country that is full of newspapers but lacks a government. In doing so, he was proclaiming that Americans’ rights override the needs of the government. He, however, would be devastated to know that today the mainstream media-- newspapers included-- is today nothing more than the propaganda purveyor of the Democratic Party, the party he supposedly founded.

 

Nearly all Americans can name three or more genders, one or more of which don’t even exist. I am nearly certain that the vast majority of Americans can name three HBO shows, three characters from Game of Thrones, three adult movie stars, three rap musicians, and three brands of candy bars. But can even half of us name all 50 states? 40? 30…?

Rising ignorance goes hand-in-hand with a lack of wisdom, declining religious belief and moral virtue, approval of socialism, hatred of America, and increasing anger, entitlement, and despair.

And, oddly enough, attendance at a college or university.

The elites aggressively promulgating leftist policies believe they are more sophisticated than the rest of us, while in reality they are simply more delusional. When a person or group believe they have the exclusive “right” to direct the lives of others, you know that person or group has no business directing the life of anyone else. The self-same people who say that merit shouldn’t determine one’s lot in life, should have nothing to do with outcomes, believe their inflexible intolerance of those they deem intolerant merit their permanent rule over everyone else. They alone are permitted to determine whose jobs are “essential” and whose are not, what things should be “worth,” and what others can and cannot do.

All of which is anathema to freedom and the founders’ vision for the United States.

If most Americans can no longer name the three branches of their country’s government, or the freedoms guaranteed to them by the Constitution and enumerated by the Bill of Rights, they don’t deserve to be free—and those in power will act with utter impunity.

When most of us can’t even name the three branches of our government, there will be zero ways left for us to Make America Great Again.