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As a non American I see the US as a country with significant structural problems. On that basis, the narratives are justified.

Especially after Jan 6 riots and the absence of a bipartisan response to this event. It is hard to discount the notion that the US is about 1 or 2 election cycles away from a society changing political crisis. Peaceful transfer of power no longer seems like a given.

1 data based point and 1 anecdote news/item.

1) America is considered a flawed democracy [1].

2) A recent tweet [2] from Gavin Newsom highlights pervasive political fragmentation across the US. Using same legal mechanisms applied by Texas and considered by other red states to curtail abortion access, in this case to curtail access to assault rifles.

Your comment you say "we need more unity". As an outsider I cannot foresee an easy / pragmatic way for the US to move closer to such a goal.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

[2] https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1469865185493983234

'America is still the best country in the world to start a business and take risks'. Do you have any data to back this up? I'm purely curious. Note you didn't state, 'and make an insanely large sum of money there', so I wouldn't be surprised if there were many more countries where it would be a good choice.

'America has more freedoms than most of the world'. What is in parenthesis is a sweeping generalization and what are you defining as 'most of the world'.

I'm not even sure what you're getting at with the NATO statement in relation to social mobility.

Frankly I'm not sure what is perverse about this article. Isn't it called the American Dream for a reason?

But I think for the Americans at the lower classes NATO, and regimes are worthless, if you are a guy who is going to die in a warehouse because you're going to be forced to work during a weather emergency, then a change of master is just a change of your master. American middle class is shrinking, it has less financial power, workers have less contractual power and less rights, so maybe instead of these useless Hollywood movies-like discourses about unity and NATO, one should address those issues, when you're a worker being replaced by a non-union one because your yearly raise doesn't even cover inflation then it all seems useless.

I am really surprised that this game still works, US needed USSR as an enemy to unite workers and keep them aligned in order to produce to fight communism, now it's the time of Russia and China, and "regimes", that from one side are being depicted as an enemy to fight and against which the people need to unite, and from another side are being used by corporations in order to manufacture and to grow their user base, I would suggest to Americans to stop caring about the enemy in China and to start caring more about their enemies in congress and in the CEO office

As much as the administration and media seem set on pointlessness in Taiwan and Ukraine, I've yet to find anyone I actually know who thinks it's good idea.

China is not our friend, we would do well to be wary as recent counter intelligence activities have shown.

The enemies in congress and corporations are two sides of the same coin. It's often all the same people moving back and forth between government, NGO, corporations, lobbying, media and then back again.

Corporations use their access to capital to capture market share often at the expense of a local / small business. While 'value engineering' everything until it's shitty.

> America is still the best country in the world to start a business and take risks.

Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety nets for a developed country.

> America still has more freedoms (speech especially) than most of the world.

The First Amendment is a great thing, but it can't maintain a culture of free speech on its own. The US's at-will firing (particularly combined with employer-dependent healthcare) means many Americans find it harder to express their views openly than people in other countries.

> Europeans don't give us enough credit. And they're replete with their own crises to always be pointing the finger.

European countries argue a lot, but there's a deep mutual respect underlying it. A willingness to reflect and see what other countries are doing better is vital in the long run.

> We're optimists, but the media is telling us not to be. They want us to yell at each other and drive ourselves into the dirt.

There's definitely a strain of hair-shirt criticism that's more interested in wallowing in self-denigration than making things better. But acknowledging the problems is important too.

> Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety nets for a developed country.

US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/

> The First Amendment is a great thing, but it can't maintain a culture of free speech on its own. The US's at-will firing (particularly combined with employer-dependent healthcare) means many Americans find it harder to express their views openly than people in other countries.

US is on par with UK and most OECD nations with regards to civil rights and liberties:

> The jurisdictions that took the top 10 places, in order, were New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Estonia, and Germany and Sweden (tied in 9th place). Selected countries rank as follows: Japan (11), the United Kingdom and the United States (tied in 17th place), Taiwan (19), South Korea (26), Chile (30), France (33), South Africa (68), Argentina (70), Mexico (86), Brazil (88), Kenya (93), India (111), Russia (115), Turkey (119), China (129), Saudi Arabia (151), Egypt (157), Iran (158), Venezuela (160), and Syria (162).

https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2020

I feel like it’s hard to describe America as being at the “top rung” of health care with the stats linked. Those being

28/40 life expectancy 3/40 reported health 18/40 social inequality

I can’t help but feel that that “reported health” is skewed with such a low life expectancy.

For clarity within these rankings the lower the number the better.

Good points, also to keep in mind that US is massive. State to state differences are presumably wide.

This probably leads to wider social and economic inequality, the richer states are more likely to have the better hospitals and better public health systems.

> US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/

The breakdown on your link shows the US is scoring well because of high self-reported health, which seems very likely to be due to cultural factures. The objective part, life expectancy, is below the OECD average, and in line with the Czech Republic or Turkey.

> US is on par with UK and most OECD nations with regards to civil rights and liberties:

Cato is an American institution with its own biases. Just having a glance through their measurements, they consider female genital mutilation to be anti-freedom but male genital mutilation to be fine, and though this is supposedly a report on "negative rights" it considers countries that require people to call other people particular ways to be more free than those who aren't. They consider governmental ownership of industry to inherently reduce economic freedom, when often the opposite is true because of stronger fairness regulations on governments (e.g. privatized utility companies can deny service to individual more easily than governmental ones). And to return to my original point, despite talking about the importance of economic freedom and quoting Trotsky, their report doesn't even examine cases where people are excluded from employment through mechanisms other than law.

>Globalism is something that should be reevaluated

The global logistical issues caused by COVID, alongside China's recent belligerence, are seeing to the reversal of a certain amount of globalisation.

>Our capital is being invested into the capabilities of rivals, and it doesn't pay dividends. Americans have been turned into buyers of cheap plastic goods, and we've lost the ability to make our own critical components and wares. Huge mistake, driven in part by these narratives.

This was driven by large US companies seeking profits by offshoring the labour force to where the costs are absolutely minimised. I've believed for a long time that the US willingly and obliviously handed China the keys to the kingdom.

Additionally, the US has managed to dismantle much of the soft-power facade that used to be so well maintained.

There are no "well behaved" countries. Comparison with others is a zero-sum game. Self-analysis is required in order to know how to be better. Denial leads to repeating mistakes.

>Europeans don't give us enough credit. And they're replete with their own crises to always be pointing the finger.

Isn't The Economist a US publication? Looking at the About FAQ, I'm guessing they're US-based since the answer to this question:

Where is your head office?

Contains no reference to a city or country, but a street and a building, thus assuming a fair bit of local knowledge. Such a US trait.

The modern, global version of The Economist was created in “the tower”, as journalists refer to the tallest of the three brutalist concrete buildings that make up the Smithson Plaza (formerly The Economist Plaza) in St James’s Street. Commissioned by The Economist and designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, the tower was our home from 1964 until the summer of 2017, when we moved into the Adelphi, a 1930s art-deco office block on the Embankment.

I'm guessing they're not in Bruges.

> Isn't The Economist a US publication?

"The Economist Group (legally The Economist Newspaper Limited) is a media company headquartered in London, England. It is best known as publisher of The Economist newspaper and its sister lifestyle magazine, 1843."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group

Oof, severe research fail on my side. Flaming arrows accepted.

I don't think it's too difficult to pick apart your points (You're ranked 20th in the world for economic freedom, for example), but you're not wrong when you point out that the US cops way more flak than it deserves.

The US is at worst mediocre amongst the developed countries, but people can't shut up about how terrible it is.

Every country has their issues, yet no other developed democracy cops it like the US.

I'd just like to point out one thing I've noticed quite a bit and would love Europeans to chime in - that is - European exceptionalism. We, Americans, were known for American exceptionalism but that has eroded to a point where I haven't heard a single good thing about America in the last decade or so. We're shameful and contemptful of our nation. Slightest positive thing is considered nationalistic and right-wing, so we've become accustomed to similar mindset as the Germans post-WWII with regards to nationalism.

But, I am seeing some rise of European exceptionalism and wonder if things have changed over in Europe? Is it more united? Even small things like '.eu' domain is proudly used. I'd be damned if I use '.us' domain. Just a small example of many.

About the only time I see HackerNews coming together is when we talk about semiconductor industry in USA. There is a sense of optimism to invest in US semiconductor industry - but it is short lived.

I'm surprised to read this given the political situation in the United States. As an outsider it seems like the entire Trump movement has a strong basis in nationalism and exceptionalism, and it was endorsed by half the country's population.

American exceptionalism (different in meaning to exceptional) as a concept and usage predates over a century. It was in fact a American communist construct:

The earliest documented use of the specific term "American exceptionalism" is by American communists in intra-communist disputes in the late 1920s.

…..

However, the specific term "American exceptionalism" seems to have originated with American communists in the late 1920s. The earliest documented usage cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is from the Daily Worker, 29 January 1929: "This American 'exceptionalism' applies to the whole tactical line of the C.I. as applied to America."[8] In turn, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (who was likely aware of this earlier use) condemned the "heresy of American exceptionalism" in a tense discussion with Jay Lovestone of the Communist Party USA, after Lovestone echoed the arguments of other American communists that the U.S. is independent of the Marxist laws of history "thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions."[8][10] The term later moved into general use by intellectuals.[10][11] "American exceptionalism" was rarely used after the 1930s until U.S. newspapers popularized it in the 1980s to describe America's cultural and political uniqueness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

Thanks, that's a super interesting history of the phrase!

Political rhetoric aside, reading NYTimes or WSJ, I seldom come across any sort of American Exceptionalism especially amongst the tech/SV diaspora. It is quite the opposite - we make fun of American Exceptionalism.

On the otherhand, I hardly ever hear a negative story in the media with regards to EU here in US-media.

That cause we not only own .com we even own ICANN at it’s true root. We have nuclear powered carrier groups with real projection of power. Europe has nothing in real terms to compare. A simple example is two formerly grand colonial European powers both invaded and attacked Libya. They literally ran out of mumitions and ordnance. Obama had to come and save the day to destroy Libya. Another example is we left Afghanistan and Britain protested. They still could not stay there alone. And NATO only exists to serve us and help us sell more arms to client states. Europe is not an empire or close to it by any means. The 20th century was Pax Americana. The 21st started as us being sole game in town.now after multiple lost treasure after multiple wars we are slightly injured. But we are still much more powerful.

As for freedom of speech we don’t really have it when it is against the national security state and imperial ambitions. We jailed Eugene Debs the politician for advocating against entering the first world war. We imprisoned the director of Spirit of ‘76 for making a movie on Yankee Doodle which was supposedly anti-British. We now have multiple tech censorship platforms instructed by politicians and the media to censor and deplatform even more.

We have the dollar as the global reserve currency and we can export our inflation. If a country threatens the dollar as a reserve currency by trying to sell their petrol in different currencies we bomb them to hell.

We have a great medical care system for the rich. The lower and middle class need not apply.

We have more flags on display than anywhere I have traveled to in Europe (maybe I missed their national holidays). Just come to Fleet Week in San Francisco to see the flags and uniforms on full display.

It's not EU, but go to Switzerland. Swiss branding permeates literally every thing. Can't go for 5 mins before noticing a Swiss flag in Zurich. Even people of Wyoming would be put off by this much about nationalism.

To be honest, as a european, I don't really understand all this fuss about exceptionalism, being the biggest economy in the world, having the highest amount of billionaires in the world, etc.

I know that it is all a big deal in US and the Americans I speak with every now and then all proudly always talk that greatness, but I would just care about being able to live a life with dignity with socialised services, government pension, sick days, etc, that do not depend on a specific company benefit but belong to the human being as a human being

So I still believe US has greatness, I can see Jeff Bezos created an empire, but then courier have no rights and people dies in a warehouse peeing in a bottle, I see the greatness of Elon Musk but then he just behaves like a child on twitter with non-sense leeching taxpayers

I've gone a bit off topic, but my point is, I am an employee with a government pension, 8% holiday allowance, sick days contribution that are paid monthly from my salary to the department of welfare with pension plan, as many in Europe, and my boss isn't worth thousand times than the average employee and I am not sure if he's classified in the wealthiest person of the world, I don't mind, we're not exceptional, but do our job and have life, I guess European exceptionalism is the lack of it?

What do you think about mega corps in Europe? VW, Siemens, etc?

I was just trying to get some perspective, so thanks! I’d like US to adopt some of the EU bits but without losing the entrepreneural drive and atmosphere. I believe some of them are mutually-exclusive.

Also worth noting corporate policies in EU:

> Sometimes European integration is a byproduct of American policy. Stubbornly national elements of policymaking, such as corporation tax, are slowly being mangled into EU matters thanks to American action. A recent American-led push to set a global minimum tax rate for big business has done more to shunt the EU towards a common tax policy than years of nagging and legal tricks by Brussels. Within the EU, low-tax countries such as Ireland and Hungary wield a veto on its tax affairs. Diplomatic force majeure by America overcame that.

Source: https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/06/17/the-eu-made-in-a...

I am not sure what to think about those mega corps, my idea is that they exist, but their relationship with their workers is subject to the oversight of governments regulations and the relationship they have with the forming unions, etc.

I think their workers have a month of paid time off? The ability to have sick days without receiving them from coworkers? The ability to access socialised health care when they need it without going bankrupt? Paternity and maternity leave which might be nice or not depending on the union country in this case, for Siemens and VW in Germany I guess they have a lot of time off, as Italian I believe Italy doesn't have a good law on paternity leave, but that's improving afaik

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I think as a system EU is good for being working class, but to be honest in the past few years I've met some cases where I was not happy, I have lived in Germany for few years and I left because the last company I was working with fired 5 people who were trying to set up a worker's union, and my last boss in Netherlands was too self-centric on the way he built his startup, so on his exit he bought a big villa with swimming pool, a new tesla, but of the marketing guy who grew the company 150% YoY for the last 3 years, backend developers and frontend developers, CS, no one got anything

While a friend's company who exit being sold to a US corp, gave even 3k to people who were interns for less than 6 months, and people working there longer got even bigger perks.

So I think bigger companies are more regulated compared to smaller ones, so I am not worried about them, some smaller ones have owners appear to have a big ego and greed drive, which is something I would like to improve in seeing beforehand

Another thing I wanted to say is that when I was in Berlin I lived with an American European history/philosophy scholar for a while, and as far as I understood is that US has always been a working class supportive country up to a certain point after the WW2, so I am not surprised to learn that EU is a product of US, I think a lot of working class rights come from policies that originated in US, I just think that at a certain point US diverted from shared wealth and started caring too much about single people wealth

EDIT: So I think you shouldn't take anything from working culture, I think you guys should just go back to where you were a while ago

> meanwhile authoritarian regimes are rising to power.

like what an authoritarian tried to do on Jan 6?

> We need more unity.

yes but how do you unite a deeply divided nation?

Don’t blame the teacher for poor grades and don’t excuse poor grades by pointing out the mediocre students.