If America Is So Great, Why Can’t We Support Our Citizens?

Summary

The author expresses frustration over America's failure to support its citizens effectively, despite claims of being the greatest country, pointing out shortcomings in healthcare, education, and public services compared to other industrialized nations.

Abstract

The article titled "If America Is So Great, Why Can’t We Support Our Citizens?" reflects the author's deep-seated frustration and confusion over the dissonance between America's self-proclaimed greatness and its lackluster performance in global rankings on health, education, equity, and happiness. The author highlights that despite being one of the wealthiest nations, the U.S. lags behind in providing universal healthcare, quality education, and efficient public transportation, which are standard in many other industrialized countries. The piece underscores the disparity between the American ideal of exceptionalism and the reality of its citizens' struggles, questioning why the U.S. cannot implement systems that benefit its populace, as seen in countries like Japan with high-speed rail, or much of Western Europe with their universal healthcare and higher minimum wages. The author criticizes the gaslighting by those in privilege who claim American superiority in these areas, despite evidence to the contrary. The article concludes with a call to action, urging the country to learn from successful models abroad and to strive for a better future by abandoning the status quo.

Opinions

The author believes that America's nationalistic pride is misplaced, given its poor performance in global rankings.
There is a critical view of the right-wing narrative that America is superior in various aspects of societal well-being.
The author points out that the U.S. healthcare system is both costly and inefficient compared to those of other industrialized nations.
Access to quality education in the U.S. is seen as unequal and overly dependent on family background and financial status.
The lack of high-speed rail and efficient public transportation is cited as evidence of America's failure to invest in its infrastructure.
The author argues that the U.S. could adopt policies from other countries, such as single-payer healthcare and universal pre-K, to improve the lives of its citizens.
There is a sense of disillusionment with American politics, particularly with the rise of Trumpism and the perceived inability of the left to effectively oppose it.
The author expresses a loss of faith in the notion of American exceptionalism, replaced by a sense of shame and a desire for change.
The article suggests that continuing with the current political and social systems will lead to America's decline.

This will always confuse and anger me.

America is the greatest country in the world!

Or so the thought process goes. When it comes to actual global rankings, we’re often not the greatest at much of anything except how many people we incarcerate and how much we spend on healthcare, despite having worse health outcomes than any other industrialized nation.

It’s incredibly frustrating to me to see this. There is such a nationalistic bent among the right-wing in America, about how we’re so great and all, and yet I just don’t feel it. We fall so far behind our other industrialized peers in the world in so many rankings of health, education, equity, and happiness, and yet there’s a whole section of the population that insists that we’re better than everyone else.

Compared to much of the rest of the world, we as a country can’t support our citizens in any way that matters. Clicking through those links I included above, we have an abysmal pre-K education rate, the odds of going to college are very heavily dependent on whether your parents went, and our teachers are overworked compared to the rest of the world only to produce worse outcomes. Our healthcare is both more expensive and worse than other similar countries. And, while our global happiness rankings climbed last year, we are, at best, middle of the pack when it comes to industrialized nations.

This crystallized for me in a random meme I saw earlier today. Somebody was complaining that comparing the US to Japan when it came to high-speed rail was disingenuous because Japan is much smaller than we are. Obviously, they should be able to do it because they have less physical ground to cover.

The response to that pointed out a couple of things, but the most important one to me was this: why can’t we do that? Yes, Japan is much smaller than we are, but we’re the Greatest Country In The World™! We’re much better than stupid old Japan, right? If they can have it, we can have it better!

That doesn’t seem to be the case for many things, though. We can’t have a single-payer healthcare system, despite the better outcomes and lower costs associated with them and, oh yeah, the fact that they would guarantee healthcare to everyone. We can’t have high-speed rail or better public transportation because it’s just too expensive. We can’t have universal pre-K or higher minimum wages or any number of other things that would help people in this country because of one particular reason or another.

All of these things are doable elsewhere and, in most cases, have positively impacted the citizens of those countries. Much of western Europe has a better standard of living than we do thanks to universal healthcare, higher minimum wages, better public transportation, and better education systems. If we’re the greatest country in the world, why can’t we have these things too?

Of course, that’s where the gaslighting starts. “American healthcare is the greatest in the world,” say the people who are privileged enough to have access to the best of it. “If you can make the grades, you can get into any university you want,” say the people whose children get in on the strength of their name or their athletics. “Just work harder and hustle and you can be rich too,” say the people who got rich off the labor of others.

In reality, there is no reason we can’t do these things. We are, after all, the Greatest Country In The World™! There’s nothing we can’t do if we put our minds to it!

That’s what I want to think, anyway. American politics, however, make me feel otherwise. With a cult of personality on the right around a dangerous narcissistic quasi-fascist and the left unable to keep its act together to oppose them, I worry that we are in for a lot more of this kind of thing.

I’ve never been a super-patriotic person. From about middle school onwards, I felt like reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning was pretty weird, and the aftermath of 9/11 and the ignoble end to the war in Afghanistan have made me a bit jaded.

And, as American politics have gone downhill with Trumpism and the right-wing lie machine, I am losing my faith in this country. I haven’t felt like America is all that great for a while now, and my pride in being an American has been slowly shifting to shame and sadness at the state of things. As someone whose job is centered on charity and improving life for people, that’s hard.

I know we can be better than we are. The status quo isn’t working, and we need to do better. It’s frustrating that we have numerous models from other countries that can help us be the great country that I know we can be, but so many people insist on the status quo. Continuing to do what we’ve been doing isn’t working and won’t work any better tomorrow.

I don’t think we can afford much more of the status quo; if things keep going as they are, we’ll just be another Greatest Country In The World™ that died an ignoble death thanks to hubris. We need to do better. I know we can.

At least, I hope we can.

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Here are some other things I’ve written:

If America Is So Great, Why Can’t We Support Our Citizens?

This will always confuse and anger me.

Thing a Day

In which I write one thing each day.

Twenty Years of War: What Was The Point?

One man’s perspective on the failed war in Afghanistan.

Why Do My Meds Cost $1,700?

And why do I have to jump through so many hoops to get them?

Americans Live in a Failed State

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