American Exceptionalism? Voters aren’t sharing the feeling these days.
It may be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but Americans are far from united in seeing the United States as an exceptional place to live, according to a new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.
The survey also finds that the share of Americans who believe that the country has a “strong national character” is shrinking.
In fact, one of the few things that unites the public is the belief that the nation is deeply divided.
The NBC/WSJ poll of social trends, which was conducted last month, found that less than a third of American adults — 28 percent — called America the “single best place to live in the world,” with another 17 percent calling it “among the very few best places.”
More respondents put United States closer to the middle of the pack, with 37 percent calling America merely “above average” and 14 percent rating the country as “average.” An additional four percent called the U.S. “below average” on the global scale.