On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, nearly 40% of the population do not believe that the country will remain unified for a long time

The United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary of independence next month. However, the latest poll shows that public confidence in the country's future prospects is waning. Nearly 40 percent of respondents believe that the United States will no longer be a unified country 250 years from now; another 64 percent think that the American democratic system is at risk of failure.

Reuters and Ipsos conducted a nationwide online poll from June 12th to 15th, interviewing 1,537 American adults. The results showed that 38% of the respondents believed that the United States would not continue to exist as a unified country in 250 years; 62% believed that the country could persist.

In terms of party affiliation, supporters of the aforementioned view among Democrats accounted for 40%, while those among Republicans accounted for 26%.

As the poll results were released, the United States was preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its independence on July 4th.

President Trump has recently frequently placed himself at the center of celebration events and has claimed that he will be the main focus of the Independence Day celebration in Washington. The event on that day will also have a Republican political campaigning nature, laying the groundwork for the mid-term elections in November.

Trump positioned his administration as a means to save the United States from being "destroyed" by the Democrats; while the Democrats countered by claiming that Trump was the greatest threat to American democracy and criticized him for using federal law enforcement agencies to target political opponents.

The survey shows that approximately two-thirds of the respondents agree with the statement that "American democracy is facing a risk of failure", including 85% of the Democratic supporters and 50% of the Republican supporters.

Compared with the similar survey conducted in August last year, the proportion of people expressing concerns about the future of American democracy has risen from 57% to 64%, with the increase mainly coming from supporters of the Republican Party.

The survey also shows that Americans' sense of national identity is declining.

Only 30% of the respondents believe that the United States is "the greatest country in the world", which is lower than the 38% recorded in the survey conducted in November 2017. Among them, the proportion of Democratic supporters holding this view dropped from 26% to 11%; while the proportion of Republican supporters remained at approximately 60%.