{"id":235720,"date":"2026-07-04T23:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T23:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235720\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T23:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T23:47:07","slug":"polls-find-that-much-of-the-country-was-lukewarm-about-semiquincentennial-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235720\/","title":{"rendered":"Polls find that much of the country was lukewarm about semiquincentennial celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 A lot has changed since 1976, the last time Philadelphia hosted a milestone anniversary of the nation\u2019s founding. But some things are still similar, including how people feel about celebrating.<\/p>\n<p>President Gerald Ford was the keynote speaker for the bicentennial on Independence Mall. He had not been elected but came to power after the resignations of both Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon after scandals that rocked public faith in the government. He acknowledged in his speech that citizens were questioning the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre our god-given rights secure, our hard-won liberties protected?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This Fourth of July, polls from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/2026\/06\/12\/on-the-countrys-250th-anniversary-the-american-people-are-in-a-sour-mood\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Pew Research<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/new-gallup-poll-reveals-depth-of-americans-gloom-about-the-future\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Gallup<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/apnorc.org\/projects\/ap-norc-america-250-poll\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Associated Press-NORC<\/a> show Americans asking many of the same questions. The findings? Most people are dissatisfied with the direction of the country; a minority felt proud or excited about the birthday; and many felt \u201cindifferent\u201d or \u201cconflicted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the last 50 years, there\u2019s been more rigorous scholarship about the founders, the clash between their stated ideals and owning slaves \u2014 recently, the Trump administration\u2019s effort to suppress those facts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audacy.com\/kywnewsradio\/news\/local\/judge-orders-trump-administration-to-restore-slavery-exhibit\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">led a federal judge to invoke the dystopian novel \u201c1984.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Fifty years ago, Ford rallied his audience by encouraging them to keep asking questions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe very fact that we can ask these questions, that we can freely criticize our society, is cause for confidence itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 A lot has changed since 1976, the last time Philadelphia hosted a milestone anniversary&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8120,69,71,70,13204],"class_list":["post-235720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america250","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-poll"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}