PHILADELPHIA — A sizable portion of the American public seems to show little interest in the fabric of the country’s government and history, a new survey finds.
Researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) surveyed over 1,000 American adults, finding a shocking lack of knowledge as it pertains to U.S. politics among the general populace.
Fifty-three percent of respondents believed the falsehood that illegal immigrants aren’t granted any constitutional rights, while 37 percent couldn’t even name a single right endowed by the First Amendment.
Thankfully, 48 percent of those surveyed were able to identify freedom of speech as being a right enshrined by the First Amendment, although far fewer could identify other rights accorded.
These include freedom of religion (15 percent), freedom of the press (14 percent), right of peaceful assembly (10 percent), and right to petition the government (three percent).
“Protecting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution presupposes that we know what they are. The fact that many don’t is worrisome,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania, in a press release. “These results emphasize the need for high-quality civics education in the schools and for press reporting that underscores the existence of constitutional protections.”
Meanwhile, only 26 percent of Americans could name all three branches of the federal government — that would be the executive, legislative, and judicial, for those playing at home.
While conservatives were more likely to be able to name all three branches than liberals or moderates, the overall proportion of the public that can name all three has fallen by 12 percent since 2011.
Perhaps most embarrassing: a full third of respondents couldn’t name a single federal branch of government, a figure that hasn’t shifted over the past half-decade.
As for the rights of illegal immigrants, a majority of conservatives (67 percent) believed that illegal aliens were not provided any legal recourse, compared to slight minorities of moderates (48 percent) and liberals (46 percent).
In reality, illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. are usually afforded a number of rights, including protection under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
On another note, it’s somewhat surprising that a significant minority of respondents believed that one could be denied rights on the basis of their religion (e.g., if they were Muslim or atheist).
The poll’s findings have a sampling error of about 3.7 percentage points.
What is a significant minority? Is significant minority your opinion or a real statistical point on a chart.
ACTUALLY MUSLIMS ARE BANNED FROM ENTERING THE UNITED STATES. THE FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THAT INTO LAW. AS FOR THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION, FOREIGNERS HAVE NO RIGHTS. THE 14TH AMENDMENT WAS ONLY DESIGNED TO PROVIDE RIGHTS TO BLACKS. RULINGS USING THE 14TH AMENDMENT TO GIVE RIGHTS TO OTHERS THAN BLACKS ARE SIMPLY WRONG!
One sentence that speak volumes “While conservatives were more likely to be able to name all three branches than liberals or moderates” I believe most conservatives know the Constitution better than the lemmings on the left that only act out like little spoiled emotional brats.
While only 25% of Americans can name all three branches of government, those numbers are skewed, because only .002% of Hillary supporters can do so.
We need to do away with the dept of education. That’s what’s driving the lack of education and moved to liberal indoctrination!
This is what happens when you allow The Left to run your “schools” for a few decades. They’re minting morons by the millions. They need an easy-to-con population to bring about their authoritarian wonderland…
and this is how easy it is for radicals like bernie sanders to poop out brainless brownshirts ala antifa. Uneducated idiots.
That’s nothing. The average college graduate in California can’t name 15 states.
The Liberal education system has failed. It failed when it became the Liberal propaganda system.
This the results of universities not teaching but being a liberal/progressive/communist collection of useful idiots that fail to do their job and teach. Instead they promote an ideology that is killing this country. Democrats have made being a victim and a freeloader a way of life for majority of any minority in the country. Schools aren’t in the business of teaching they are in the business of brain washing. Especially at the university level. Any graduate of high school or a university should be able to sue if they can’t name the three branches of our government.
Well if this survey is even halfway correct all those people ignorant of basic high school civics are committing voter fraud everytime they cast a ballot…
This should be NO surprise to anyone, although it should be a wake up call. It’s all due to Public Education or Diseducation as it is, and it’s by design. It’s so much easier to eliminate the Rights of the People when they are unaware of what their rights are. The Left understands this and has been working nonstop for 60 yrs. to bring us to the point where we are no longer willing to fight to retain our rights. Many States require a permit to exercise your guaranteed 2nd Amend. right. Often a permit is req. to exercise the Right to Free Speech. How long before a permit is req. to attend church? We are on the proverbial slippery slope and losing our footing.
It speaks volumes for our public “educational system”…
The three branches are executive, legislative, and judicial. I usually play dumb for these types of questions too. I want the poor schlubs doing the survey to feel like their life isn’t a total waste.
A state should secede and implement an outright property ownership requirement of at least 2 acres to vote. Hopefully, eventually, only white male property owners would be allowed to vote, but this would be a good start.
Less than one-in-three Americans can find Afghanistan on a map.. yet we have been at war there 16 years and flushed $5 trillion down a big sewer in the sand. The MSM (Deep State) makes sure zero truth reaches the masses so the Matrix can continue undisturbed.
What else do you expect? We have a subversive educational curriculum that disparages and ignores America and history rather than celebrating American values and history. Our kids are being turned away from freedom and directed towards the false narrative of equality and multiculturalism’s failed notion of cohesion.
This is cultivated ignorance, courtesy of a progressive-dominated school system determined to turn out badly educated people incapable of thinking for themselves, and thus requiring dependency on government to get by.
A great victory for the Marxists running our schools from pre-K to PhD.