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.
9 out of 10 idiots can tell you who was on Colbert last night.
“We the people” does not mean illegals. It means “We the people” of the United States, those born here.
Looks like you don’t know as much as you think either.
Wrong.
This clearly shows the poor education that is being presented in this country. Wow! I learned all this in high school. If this is what the public schools are putting out, then everyone parent needs to get his child out of the public schools and into private education or home schooling. It is absolute ignorance that only one out of three people can name the branches of government. I bet these same individuals can name all the music and movie stars though. America is going down the tubes rapidly.
gov education at work, by socialists… easy to overthrow an uninformed and docile public….
*being an Grammar Nazi* “an uniformed”
yes i type fast and catch it later, it will update…
That’s cool. Happens to me all the time 🙂
Nice work, liberals!!
The Annenberg study’s press release points out that conservatives were “significantly” more likely than liberals and moderates to be able to name all 3 branches of government — not just “more” likely. No surprise there.
If schools actually taught kids something instead of indoctrinating them into homosexuality and believing in “global warming” and being “pc”, maybe people in the USA wouldn’t be morons.
Other countries like the Netherlands and Finland are at the top of education while we are pretty far down.
LOL! You can’t “indoctrinate” someone into being gay.
Liberals took over the government schools, their plan to indoctrinate, and teach students about nonsense. Rotting the country from the inside out.
Civics, et. AL. should be part of getting your drivers license renewed! Sorry, you don’t know the rules of the road OR our country. NO LICENSE FOR YOU! NEXT!
“While conservatives were more likely to be able to name all three branches than liberals or moderates…”
Wait a second! I thought that liberals keep claiming that conservatives are the ones who are ignorant and uneducated.
Then again, liberals are in control of the vast majority of schools, (both primary and secondary education), so if Americans are ignorant, just whose fault would THAT be?
This is the failure of liberal educators, who worry more about how studends feel than what they learn.
People should be required to pass a civics test before earning voting rights. Same as new citizens are required to do (supposedly). Also Gun Rights and Voting Rights should be tied together DIRECTLY. If you lose one, you lose the other as well. Cultural Marxists will tie themselves into logical knots trying to give felons voting rights, while keep law-abiding Americans unarmed.
Current gun laws actually make a great argument FOR voter ID! You need a photo ID and a FBI background check to purchase a gun from a dealer, but they claim that requiring a photo ID to vote is “racist.” Both are Constitutional rights, yet one requires and ID and the other doesn’t.
Home schooling is required to honestly educate. Government school systems are worse than failures…..they are nothing but communist propaganda and indoctrination.
And yet the 74% who couldn’t name the 3 branches of government still get to vote. Unbelievable.
The dumbing down of the American populace by the Leftist uneducators is almost complete. The populace, as an ignorant fool, is now ready to be led as a sheep to the slaughter.
The legumaslative, the jumadicial and the let me grab a pen and sign what i want lol
Democrats are loving this stuff or in other words…..”Long Live the Public Schools”.
Very true, because government schools fulfill every requirement needed to take America down. Just Google the Communist Manifesto….
Great NEWS for the Globalists, PROVING their Public School Indoctrination System is a SUCCESS!
Branches….shmanches. What is important here is we all should be taking a knee.