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.
There should be a pop quiz you have to pass in order to vote. Why not? They have a test for citizenship.
It’s so easy.
The three branches of government are 1) Healthcare 2) Housing 3) Climate Change
Yes, thanks to Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama!
I’m confused, which branch hands out Obamaphones?
That’s easy…all three. 1) Healthcare allows the rats to contact their dealer when they’ve run out of product to sell, or pray tell call 911 when theirs a shooting nearby. 2) Housing allows the recipients and phone vendors a safe space to peddle the free cache of entitlements including the phone. Rehashed another way, it’s the precursor to ‘Urban Development.’ 3) Climate Change pulls the three branches together by providing the built-in excuse for not being accessible to the entitled class due to the normal patterns associated with changes in the seasons, but trying to explain to the low information populace that cow farts and human flatulence and gasoline are the greatest threats to their livelihood.
FCC
Obviously. I was speaking of the branches offered by borgcube: Healthcare, Housing and Climate Change. Please refer to the post to which one is responding. And MAGA to you.
And the duty of the president is to protect us from fake global warming
VERY WITTY
These are the same people calling for impeachment, but don’t know even the first step in that process.
Jus’ axe that black Democrap representative from California.
EXACTLY what leftists in the teacher’s union want: zero understanding of American gov’t.
So that tyrants like our last president can drag us around by the scruff of the neck!
Most of those in teacher’s unions don’t know either.
More fake news. There is no way 25% can name all 3 branches of government. That number is way overstated! :-O
This study is a condemnation of our educational system. Liberal leadership in education has removed civics as a required class for graduation in most districts. This is the root cause of a failure to know – failure to teach! Curriculum should be mandated to teach US civics, our government structure, how our government works, and most importantly our individual rights guaranteed by our Constitution. If more students were taught, more would be informed. Remove your head of education at the local level if they do not support Civics required education. It is up to each of us to protect our rights and it all starts at the local level.
That should be easy. There’s the Branch Of Graft and Bribery, the Branch For Mistrusting Citizens and Abusing Them, The Branch of War and Use of Our Citizens As Cannon Fodder. Then, of course, there is the new Branchs Of Lying, Globalization, ISIS Alliance.
The sad fact is, we don’t have a government any more. What we have is an organized crime syndicate.
Ok so everyone wants to blame the schools and educational system, well let me tell you that is only a small part of the problem. As the saying goes you can not make a silk purse out of a sow ear, YOU CAN NOT MAKE STUPID PEOPLE SMART. YOU JUST CAN NOT. WHEN THEY CHOOSE TO NOT LEARN, DON’T COME TO SCHOOL OR JUST SOCIALIZE AND NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT BECAUSE THAT IS INFRINGING ON THEIR RIGHTS WHAT YA GONNA DO?
This is why there should be a license required to vote which is obtained by passing a basic test on the structure of the US government and why it was created that way. You have to pass a test to get a drivers license and voting is of far more importance that driving. And while we’re at it, mandatory civics classes in all public schools.
Driving is not a right. Voting is.
If you want to make an apples to apples comparison, it would be the requirement to possess photo ID and pass an FBI background check to purchase a gun, (owning a gun IS a right), but NOT requiring photo ID to vote.
If someone asked me about the three branches of government, I’d tell them that is an offensively stupid question.
Brilliant, polysci major! (smile)
Passing a very simple civics test should be required in order to vote.
….and to play in the NFL???
Democrats would find a way to cheat.
In addition to this sad news, I’m certain that most, if not all the NFL players who are “taking a knee” at ball games are not registered to vote, nor did they vote in the 2016 election. I know that Colin Kaepernick wasn’t registered nor did he vote in the 2016 election.
This is by design. Schools no longer teach Civics/American Government, or at least if they do, they turn it into a discussion class about what’s wrong with America instead of what’s right. The Left have been ruining public education for decades PRECISELY to bring about the kind of divisiveness we have in this country now. They wanted American society to crumble, so the best way was to start indoctrinating the children on the evils of it.
Teachers across the country have been assigning Howard Zinn’s “The People’s History of the United States” for decades to generations of students in order to undermine patriotism and foment leftist radicalism. Even the New Republic enthusiastically cited his “influential mutilations of American history.” But Zinn certainly had no problem with communism and the Soviet Union. You know, the “people’s paradise.”
We have a government? Very funny.
The liberal party of hate. Hate for exceptional white men and their white guilt has shamed the people of this country into this idea of liberal social engineering. We have Black History Month, Women’s History Month, where the Constitution and white men are not discussed. Do any of you liberals know who these white men are?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Nikola Tesla
Dr. Jonas Salk
Albert Einstein
Thomas Edison
Political Correctness has polluted this country. No longer is it acceptable to be exceptional, we all have to meet lower standards to allow women and minorities to participate.
Yup, and Milton Freidman, and Ludwig von Mises, and Frederic Bastiat, and Etienne de la Boetie, etc, etc, etc.
And that many not knowing about the 3 branches is why they’re merging into one right before our eyes. There … you can’t say it any better than that.
Democrats don’t believe there are any Branches of Government, they think we’re a democracy.
Your own knowledge of the Constitution is lacking. Rights are not “endowed” or “accorded” by the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights recognized that human beings are born with rights and prohibits the government established by the Constitution from infringing on those rights.
And the third that couldn’t name any dummycrat religiously.