A political science professor says the United States’ education system has failed to instill a basic understanding of the nation's founding principles, arguing that civic ignorance poses a greater threat to the country than foreign adversaries.

Suffolk Community College political science professor and Campus Reform higher education fellow Nick Giordano told the Just the News, No Noise TV show on Tuesday that the United States’ education system has “completely failed the student body.”

An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey released in September 2025 found that most Americans can’t name all five freedoms within the First Amendment.

Giordano believes that many U.S. citizens view either foreign issues with countries like Russia and China or political division within America as the country's biggest threats. However, the “lack of understanding in what we’ve inherited” actually poses the largest threat, he said. 

He outlined two segments within American society: one that believes America is inherently evil and racist, that it’s an oppressed, unjust society and therefore, the country’s principles need to be dismantled. The other actually does believe in and appreciate the U.S.

A new Gallup survey released Monday found that 33 percent of U.S. adults feel "extremely proud" to be an American, while 20 percent feel "very proud." 70 percent of Republicans are “extremely proud” to be American, compared with 28 percent of independents and 14 percent of Democrats.

"We see the impact that the education system has had," Giordano said.

It’s not just the education system, though, he continued. It’s also the evolution of popular culture from that of the 1990s, which included products such as Little House on the Prairie, Real Merchant Hero and GI Joe that have more Republican values of family, faith and community, to a more progressive pop culture today.

Katherine Pugh is a reporter for Just the News. Follow her on X for more coverage.