It was a bumper sticker I spotted on a truck in my town the other day. "I grew up in a place called America," it said, implying it no longer existed. Depending on how old you are, you may or may not agree.

According to a recent survey conducted by Ipsos ahead of America's 250th anniversary, only 39% of Americans under the age of 44 think being American is an important part of how they think of themselves. The percentage rises to 52% among Gen Xers, and 65% among Baby Boomers like me, and presumably the guy who put the bumper sticker on his truck.

I was thinking about the sticker -- and the study I received recently from Ipsos -- as I watched a wannabe king welcoming an actual king at the White House this morning, and how embarrassed I've felt about being an American in Trump's version of America. It's certainly not the one I grew up in.

I'm not alone. A quarter of those responding to the Ipsos study say they are embarrassed to be an American. That doesn't mean I don't love my country or that I feel any less American because of the way it's being governed. It just means I'm embarrassed about it.

A bigger concern is the trend among young Americans who don't even feel it's that important that they actually are American, because they are the ones who will be America's future and it doesn't even matter to them.

It reminds me of a study I saw more than a decade ago, leading up to the 2016 presidential election, which found that only a third of Millennials felt it was essential to live in a democracy.

My sense then -- as it is about how younger people feel about being an American now -- is that they don't know what it means to be without democracy, much less American democracy. At least not until they lose it.