According to the annual Constitution Day citizen survey, President Trump’s comprehensive policy changes on topics ranging from economy to government spending have inspired more information about Americans.
In an online poll of 1,684 adults publishing On Thursday, the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 40% of people correctly named three of their five First Amendment, up from 30% last year.
Among them is 48% who know that the Constitution can guarantee its religious freedom, up from 39% in 2024. The awareness of freedom of speech increased from 74% to 79%, and over the same period, knowledge of assembly rights jumped from 27% to 36%.
The numbers reversed the years of decline and caused a similar surge in consciousness that broke out in 2018 during Mr. Trump’s first term.
“When politics becomes immediately in the news and is more relevant to people’s lives, they are more concerned and have a higher level of knowledge,” Mr Levendusky said in an email.
He cited the lower court to block Trump policy, the Supreme Court’s recent decision to speed up hearings on the legitimacy of the president’s tariffs, and Congress passed a big beautiful bill with Mr. Trump’s memorable voice as an example.
The Trump White House praised the investigation’s conclusions in a statement to the Washington Times.
“President Trump is a fearless defender of our constitution, and his victory in the Nov. 5 landslide has ignited a wave of patriotism and civic engagement in our country,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said.
Falling on September 17 each year, Constitution Day is a federal holiday that honors those who signed the country’s written charter in 1787 and became American citizens.
Several historians and political analysts criticizing the president sought comments, agreeing that Americans have adjusted their founding documents more than usual since returning to the office in January.
“People no longer value rights,” said James Carville, a Democratic strategist and former lecturer in political science at Tulane. “Trump always claims that he doesn’t have enough credibility for anything, but what we can be sure now is that he is the greatest civic teacher in modern America.”
“Believe that Trump has taught us to appreciate our fragile civil liberties,” added Woody Holton, a historian of the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.
Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, said the findings called on the Trump administration to reconsider its cuts in federal education as teachers scramble to understand its policy struggles.
“This administration takes pride in challenging political and constitutional norms,” Ms. Wexell added. “Every day, national news teaches lessons about checks and balances, the rule of law and American rights.”
Annenberg Public Policy Center conducted this year’s national team survey in August. Its margin of error at 95% confidence is a plus sign or minus 3.5 percentage points.
The survey also found that 70% of adults can list all three branches of the government – legislation, justice and enforcement.
That’s 65% in 2024, while the highest number of years recorded by Annenberg surveys.
Political scientists, legal scholars and historians have warned for years that the growing indifference to basic government functions could lead to political destabilization of the state.
Peter Wood, president of the Conservative National Association of Scholars, said that 30% of adults in the latest Annenberg survey knew nothing about the three branches of the government, which is still unsettling.
“I suspect Trump’s impact on this is that he makes citizens interesting,” said Wood, former Boston University vice provost. “Whether the poll respondents are through their enthusiasm for their policy initiatives or their enthusiasm against them, they have new reasons to pay attention to.”
Annenberg conducted the first investigation in 2006. It also found that 34% of people correctly named the press freedom this year, while 12% identified the petition as the other two First Amendment freedoms, with no statistical change since 2024.
According to Annenberg scholars, political affiliation does not differ in the benefits of modest knowledge this year.
But the investigation found that political divisions around the Supreme Court were obvious. There is a nearly 60-point gap between 75% of Republicans and 18% of Democrats expressing at least moderate trust in the conservative-led High Court.
Elesha Coffman, a cultural historian at Baylor University, who was not involved in the investigation, said such findings revealed a “alarm bell” that reveals sudden interest in citizens.
“I see trouble and hope in these findings,” she said in an email.
The findings of this year are a drastic shift starting in September 2024, when Annenberg’s last investigation warned of widespread political ignorance entering the November presidential election.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy, predicts that citizen knowledge will continue to rise as Mr. Trump’s executive branch and Congress and the Supreme Court empower the economic policy.
“We also want to raise awareness when the privileges of branches are in dispute, when the tariff authorities reside in the president or in Congress,” Ms. Jamison said.
