American Patriotism At HBS

Jake Goodman (MBA ‘26) shares his reminders of patriotism

The White House’s website declares “we have unmistakably entered a Golden Age of American greatness,” but you might not feel like it. I’m not talking about the kind of partisan battling that accompanies living under a president whose policies you may disagree with. I’m talking about how a sense of patriotism has become a political badge rather than a default state of national engagement. I’ve noticed an elevation in what one of my favorite writers, Jack Kerouac, called the “negative, nightmare position of putting down society” become more present in my life. If your eyes were pointed towards the general locus of culture, you would think that America is more divided, more antisemitic, more racist, more fascist, more bankrupt, more taken advantage of, more unfair. All these mores add up to an impression of America as a nation betrayed, an organism past its prime and worth giving up on.

Like a good, proper student, I cannot just speak to vibes and will cite some real data. Recent data reveals a stark and steady decline in American patriotism, with national pride hitting historic lows as the country becomes increasingly polarized. Forty-four percent of Americans said the country is becoming less patriotic, according to an Economist/YouGov poll. According to a June 2025 Gallup poll, only 58% of U.S. adults say they are "extremely" or "very" proud to be American—a record low that marks a sharp drop from the nearly unanimous 90% recorded shortly after September 11, 2001. This erosion is particularly pronounced among younger generations and along partisan lines; for instance, Gallup found that only 36% of Democrats express high levels of pride, compared to 92% of Republicans. This "pride gap" is mirrored in generational data from 2025, which shows that only 41% of Generation Z adults feel "extremely" or "very" proud to be American, whereas 75% of Baby Boomers and 83% of the Silent Generation maintain those sentiments. Beyond national pride, public trust in the institutions that underpin the American identity has also withered; Pew Research Center reported in late 2025 that only 17% of Americans trust the government in Washington to do what is right "just about always" or "most of the time," reflecting a broader disillusionment with the nation's current trajectory.

However, I’m not here to report the news on what people at HBS seem to already have an underlying intuition of. The belief that America is off the rails, that things only get worse, that the future is dim, and America is bad for the world has become so present in my social media feeds and friend groups that I worry more that more of my fellow students accept a construction of a declining America that is self-fulfilling. As citizens and by extension those with visas to live in this country, there is a grand purpose to believing that the United States of America is the greatest engine of human prosperity that has ever existed. Even further, the United States, while not perfect, should and could have the most moral system of government with the most capable leadership to lead this world into greater abundance, even should that leadership stray from our founding principles. Why not believe in this understanding of America? Why not believe that American innovation is going to lead the AI era? If we interrogate our beliefs, we should reckon with the discomfort some feel comes with asserting America’s imperative to prosper and lead. I want this country to be boundless in its pursuit of greatness—economic, cultural, and militarily—and I hope every American can rejoice in a similar belief.

When divisive events diminish our sense of well being in the country, I often notice that the anger in America is not typically backstopped by a fundamental desire for the slow, steady work that is the conserving of our founding principles of justice and self-reliance. To feel inspired by our patriotic duty to see a better version of America and usher it in should be a part of the practice of being a citizen, particularly at this university, where the standards of leadership are rightfully higher. 

At least at HBS, this version of an America bound to a higher calling feels alive to me because Harvard is a celebration of America. There is daily joy to be had in knowing that the international students at Harvard Business School chose this country and its greatest educational institution rather than anywhere else in the world to study business—the root of our prosperity. The thousands of students at Harvard University who uproot their lives each year say with their feet that they believe in the power of this country to vault talent from all over the world into wealth. I believe the world’s best university should be in America, and an elite institution like Harvard should be emblematic of our national penchant for excellence, innovation, and global talent. 

Andreessen Horowitz in their grandiose fund announcement echoed this concept of patriotism, tying the fate of the world’s prosperity to America’s success and crediting the American system for generating a “miraculous improvement in the human condition.” While one can quibble about the motives of Andreessen Horowitz, it is refreshing to see such a prominent display of the application of wealth and resources to drive success both for and through America. Venture capital has created massive wealth for investors by underwriting in the tremendous drive to create prosperity under an American system that encourages risk taking and the chance to generate significant equity value. HBS lives within the venture ecosystem as an institutional beneficiary of the same American value set. 

My stance is not intended to brush aside political concerns or bury important issues. Rather, I want to show that being a HBS student is to involve yourself with many of the greatest parts of the United States and to do so daily. To be funded to pursue a dream, to learn from brilliant professors from all around the world, to attract luminaries eager to give back to a younger generation, to rejoice in the bounty of tremendous institutional resources and wealth in pursuit of building the great leaders of tomorrow, these are the routine reminders of patriotism that shape my personal pride in being American on campus. I feel lucky every day to walk the beautiful streets of Cambridge, going to classes with talented students from around the world or across the coasts of this country and the land between. Attending this university, studying the heart of what makes this country so prosperous, and trying to play my own part in the patchwork of American progress has been a daily act of patriotism that I hope can be celebrated in a sphere of thought beyond politics, in the moral theater that is love for a land of opportunity and the seizing and enlarging of that opportunity.

Jake Goodman (MBA ’26) is originally from Davie, Florida. He graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in English and Economics in 2019. Prior to HBS, Jake worked in corporate development, strategic finance, and retail strategy and operations at Gopuff, a rapid convenience app, in Miami, and for Barclays in New York City. He is an avid banjo and guitar player and misses the Florida sun dearly.