I was recently sitting on a waterfront in the Hudson Valley, staring across at Orange County, New York — where George Washington spent more than a year encamped during the Revolutionary War. It was also the site of the Newburgh Conspiracy, when Continental soldiers, angered over lack of pay, planned to stage a mutiny. But the revolt ended when Washington, while reading a letter supporting the army’s demands, paused to put on his glasses.
“Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind,” Washington said, moving the men to tears and ending the mutiny right there.
It sounds silly (and believe me, I was made fun of), but I started crying too just thinking about it. My heart swells with a patriotic pride every time I’m surrounded by the living inheritance of our ancestors and forefathers and think of the sacrifices they made for this great country. But apparently, I’m in the minority in Gen Z when it comes to feeling this way about America. A 2025 Gallup poll found just four in 10 Gen Z adults were “extremely proud” to be American.
That decline in patriotism is one of the themes running through Rachel Campos-Duffy’s new book, All American Patriotism, in which Fox News hosts share their own experiences growing up when Americans were far more confident in their country than they are today.
Erika Kirk writes in the book’s foreword that many young Americans have been raised to feel ashamed of their country.
“So many young people today have been raised under a quiet weight, taught to feel embarrassed instead of thankful for being an American,” Kirk writes. “They’ve been handed fragments of their country’s story, stripped of context and hope. And unfortunately, they’ve seen more things torn down than built up, more apologies than celebrations. They’re told the American story and dream is diluted, or, worse, that it was never worth telling at all.”
Several of the stories in Campos-Duffy’s new book contrast the upbringing of today’s youth with the patriotism of yesteryear.
Campos-Duffy’s mother was an immigrant from Spain, and her father was the son of immigrants and grew up in a Spanish-speaking house. Nonetheless, he “embraced and loved American culture. He played Little League, went to prom, and loved Elvis Presley. He even tried to dress and do his hair like Elvis.” Her father later joined the U.S. Air Force.
Campos-Duffy explained how she “recently asked him, ‘Papi, do you describe yourself as Mexican-American or American?’ He said without hesitation, ‘I’m American. It’s where I was born. It’s where I’ll die. America is my home.’”
Campos-Duffy says her mother used her first paycheck to take Campos-Duffy and her siblings to California’s Great America, “an American-themed amusement park.”
“My parents were insistent on having fully Americanized children. When bilingual education was en vogue in the 1970s, and school administrators signed us up without our parents’ approval, my mom marched down to the principal’s office and told him to take us out. ‘If you want to talk to someone with an accent,’ she told them, ‘you can talk to me! My children will be learning in English in this school.’”
Campos-Duffy said her parents made it a priority to speak English at home and that her parents were “intentional about assimilating their children and connecting us with the culture and history of America.”
That kind of thinking used to be normal in this country. Parents and communities saw it as their responsibility to pass down love of country to the next generation. In other words, patriotism was part of growing up American.
One of the biggest debates of our time centers on what it means to be an American. Is America just an office park for H1-B workers to frequent, knit together by a love for free markets? Is it a heritage founded by settlers for their children, set apart as a nation by a shared history and culture? Each chapter in Campos-Duffy’s book, written by various Fox News authors, takes on that question differently.
Though the contributors in All American Patriotism all approach that question from varying perspectives, in each story is found the common idea: America is something to love and be proud of.
You can order a copy of All American Patriotism here.
