# Why are Republicans generally more patriotic than Democrats?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-generally-more-patriotic-than-democrats/791627>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 19, 2017, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-generally-more-patriotic-than-democrats/791627 "2017-07-19T05:03:49Z")\
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**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2017, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-republicans-generally-more-patriotic-than-democrats/791627/1 "2017-07-19T05:03:49Z")

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I now believe that it is fairly well-established that Republicans generally are more patriotic than Democrats. **Why is that so?**

The motivation for this thread came out of [this post in this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20350848#post20350848) and the ensuing discussion. I was asked to “take your hijack somewhere else” and now this is that somewhere else. You are welcome to read the context and arguments thus far over there, but I will try to briefly summarize the factual basis for my premise here regardless, as I suspect that that will become the main topic of discussion and not so much the _why_, although I would welcome any insights you have to offer on that front as well.

[Gallup published a scientific poll in 2010](http://www.gallup.com/poll/141110/one-three-americans-extremely-patriotic.aspx) that asked this question:

> [@](#):
>
> How patriotic are you? Would you say extremely patriotic, very patriotic, somewhat patriotic, or not especially patriotic?

They helpfully provided a breakdown of the results by various groups, and here are those results for the two that matter for purposes of this OP:

**Republicans** :  
52% extremely patriotic  
39% very patriotic  
9% somewhat patriotic  
less than 0.5% not especially patriotic

**Democrats** :  
20% extremely patriotic  
42% very patriotic  
26% somewhat patriotic  
11% not especially patriotic

Personally I don’t see any reasonable way to parse those results that doesn’t show Democrats as generally less patriotic than Republicans, but I’d be delighted to hear your theories and arguments as to why this is not so, if that’s the claim you wish to advance.

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