Completely agree. There's an odd inferiority/superiority complex amongst Anglo nations to compare themselves to the US in every aspect from racism to healthcare to foreign policy and imperialism. In the UK, they will happily insist they're "not racist" like they are in the US, whilst happily throwing bananas on the football pitch when a black player turns up.

The same applies to healthcare where any critique or desire for improvement is deflected back to the guys who do it worse, i.e.; the US, whilst in the same breath selling off the NHS piecemeal to foreign investors. The UK is not a warmongering imperialist nation, they'll claim, whilst happily following the US in every foreign imperial boondoggle and pretend they were dragging their feet and forced into it. Never mind the ways imperialism can be performed without being at gunpoint.

The most valid claims against the US have to do with its obsession with the state, the nationalism, the worship of its political figures and institutions which simply don't figure in Anglo discourse... Unless you mention the Royals, in which case it's basically sacrilege, treason, sedition and worthy of exile and death penalty.

But all in all, the worst part of the critique comes in the form of what basically amounts to smug rubbing in of the better material conditions those nations are in at the expense of financially poor working-class Americans who have no desire to be in those conditions and have no way to escape or resolve them as the country is, by design, not a democracy, and has a vested owner class that controls every aspect of their social politics and economics. Ultimately, it abandons any pretense of international solidarity and makes them pat themselves on the back that they'll never be as bad as the US, and that therefore nothing needs to change, and that Americans are all ignorant and stupid bible-thumpers who want things to be this way (unlike the enlightened commonwealthers they are).

Germans do this all the time. Imagining that all Americans are fat and stupid and always carry McDonald's and an AR15 makes us feel sane, competent and relevant. There's a newer Simpsons episode where German backpackers live with the Simpsons and they just keep pestering Marge with what's wrong about the US, they just keep rattling down point after point like "problem nr. 34, no public health care, problem nr. 35, no metric system, problem nr." and it's so fucking true, both what they say and the smug, condescending delivery that's so routine that it's obvious how deeply that disgust at the ugly American is baked into our culture.

On the other hand, we're completely dominated by American soft power - probably moreso than other non-Anglo Western nations, because our own cultural industry got so irreparably damaged by the nazis that we had barely begun to build it back up when pop culture as we know it today began to form. American bands where automatically considered cooler than German bands until wayyyyyy into the 90s, for example. Turns out it's hard to build a large rock scene when you've literally sent your jazz scene to the camps. German film and tv productions still lag behind the US standards, even 100 years after all the incredible talent in Babelsberg fled to Hollywood. I could say similar things about literature, painting, architecture. One consequence of fascism was that culturally, we went from cutting edge to nothing, and that vacuum was filled with the massive output of the American entertainment machinery. There's a reason the CIA sponsored foreign tours for jazz musicians in the 1950s.

I have no idea where i'm going with this, so :amerikkka: :germany-cool:

all the canadians i know, after i've criticized trudeau, have said "at least we're not america" or "better than trump!"

Na the US being such a low bar lowers the bar for the rest of the imperial core

So everyone walks around sucking their own toes over the NHS in the UK whilst its been privatised to shit by Lab and Cons and the current CEO of the NHS also worked at United Health in the US

So they've parcelled out the NHS to a million different providers and all they have to remove next is the "free at point of use" and the entire privatised framework is there

But noone pays attention cos "the US has it so terribly"

If tomorrow people were en masse eating and fucking each other in the streets you'd here europeans and Australasians go "yeah but in the US they're eating/fucking and shooting each other there"

In the other hand, in colonized mindsets like in latam you have: "murica good, big economy, big cars, big army, we need to get rid of any worker right, social safety net, socialized healthcare or public education to be like them". And gods burn in hell it works in a lot of idiots. That's the rightwing talking points, meanwhile the """center-left""" do as you say "look, at least we aren't torturing kids in deathcamps like the US"

this is literally canada's entire existence

And the ironic thing, as an American, is the sheer number of my fellow citizens who genuinely believe the USA is the greatest country in the world and the best place to live. I bet it's like 75% of US Americans that think like that.

Mental healthcare isn't covered universally in Australia? Wack, it is in the NHS even if it's shit and woefully underfunded.

*sobs in american*

the american political system made feel better about the one in my country, i used to think my country was a fake democracy (oligarchy) and that why it had so much corruption, and now i see actually my country is a democracy a flaw one but one none the less, and the US is the un-democratic oligarchy

So I'm an American living in Aus for almost two years. In that time, I have become the token American for friends and strangers alike, an easy target for people who consume a lot of American political news and are looking for someone to practice with. And I'm always down, it's still interesting after all this time to hear an outside perspective.

One thing I rarely hear, however, is that Australia is heading down the same conservative, corporate path that lead to the USs current state. In fact, the media makes Australia seem so much more batshit conservative than any Fox News dude, besides maybe Tucker Carlson.

From what I've seen, Australians have a lot to be worried about, in ways that mirror the downfall of the US. A rapidly rightward marching Overton window, as well as consolidation of conservative power. A heightening of xenophobia that I find much more troubling than anything I'd seen in the US besides immediately post 9/11. An economy based on extraction of depleting resources. A population that finds it extremely easy to tune out activist voices. And let me tell you, many Australians DO NOT want to hear such things from an American, a lesson I learned early.

All this rambling to say the US is a low bar yes, but it should serve as a warning how easy it is to get there, not as an example to laugh at. Australians are a lot closer to Americans than they think. I love yall, but be humble. Also, I'll take all this back if you just process my damn visa... Please...

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I'm just sitting here in New Zealand watching all the other countries struggle with corona and trying hard not to become a nationalist tbh

Well bully for them then when China ascends to the hegemonic rule they will have to scramble to attain the standards of China!