AskBeehaw

It's complicated.

"Bad" is first and foremost a matter of perspective and comparison. The United States is a a highly developed democracy (for now at least) and as such, it makes sense to compare it to the short list of other highly developed democracies on this planet (Canada, most of Europe, Israel, Oceania, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan). In the age of the Internet, this is easier than ever before, including - which can be especially devastating to many Americans - hearing first-hand accounts from what life is like in those other highly developed democracies, most of which do not share the same problems or at least not at the same level of severity as the US.

When you do that, issues become apparent. Inequality, healthcare (by far the most egregious), civil rights, violence (both violent crime and police violence), freedom of the press, judiciary, the general state of democratic institutions, the election system and the results it's producing, etc.

From a European perspective, the US changed from a country that was admired and emulated to a cautionary tale. To me personally, this happened after what was arguably the high point of its existence, the 1990s, the "end of history", when the Cold War was won, standards of living were improving rapidly across all of the developed world and America seemed invincible and still very much worth copying. Bush changed all of that, with his ignorance, his unjust war against Iraq, his erosion of civil liberties. Columbine just shortly before was perhaps another sign that something was amiss, that there were deeper issues below the shiny surface.

But once again, that's from the perspective of someone living and growing up in another highly developed nation, which combined only make up a small fraction of the world's population. The US should be compared to those and judged by the same standards, but most members of our species are living very different lives, under very different and worse conditions and are thus looking at this country from a very different point of view: They are experiencing far more poverty and inequality, violence and corruption, far worse media landscape, far less robust democratic institutions, are at a far greater risk of dying early due to events and powers outside of their own control. Yet they now have even easier access to media, both flattering and not, that shows them that there is this huge country of opportunity, where even a simple clearly exploited farm worker or household help can and does make more money than a doctor where they are coming from. Standards of living are higher for Americans, even during a crisis, than in much of the rest of the world. The gap may not be as massive and universal as it was a few decades ago, but it's still there and won't disappear for a long time. Given that much of the developing world will be far more affected by climate change in the coming decades (and yes, I'm writing this as wildfires are still devastating LA - being less affected doesn't mean this man-made catastrophe won't hurt us in the developing world as well), it'll only increase.

This reminds me a little of how Soviet cinemas used to show "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) in their state-run cinemas in 1948 in order to demonstrate just how bad America was - except that Soviet citizens saw that even the poorest Americans had cars, which were completely unobtainable to them at the time. The film was quickly pulled from cinemas.

It is important to mention that for all of its problems, both relative and absolute, the United States are still a leading nation in many ways, being the global center for science of innovation, popular culture and independent art, which alone allows them to pull in the most talented people from all over the world. It's not only attractive to immigrants from poor countries, but also the best and brightest from everywhere, who can, with a bit of luck, make careers there that would be impossible anywhere else on Earth.

They are also the only superpower on this planet, have more soft (diplomatic, cultural) and hard (military) power than any other nation and by a massive gap that nobody will be able to come close to this century, if ever. Russia is a global pariah that is struggling to defeat a much smaller, poorer and weaker nation directly at its border and China has a far longer list of problems than the US, currently engaged in several genocides, is squandering its soft power with an arrogant, aggressive foreign policy that makes Trump look like a skilled diplomat and is hell-bent on repeating Russia's recent mistakes in Taiwan. America's military dominance is unpopular for a number of reasons globally, especially since Bush Jr. abused it and with Trump's recent remarks about Canada, Panama and Greenland, it creates worries everywhere, but one thing many critics are either knowingly or unknowingly ignoring is that it has also resulted in previously unprecedented levels of global stability and peace. There are so many conflicts around the globe that were limited or prevented entirely from escalating into full-on wars only by the simple act of sending a carrier group close to the right shore line - and sometimes even by just a sternly worded letter. The ability to wage three full-on wars anywhere on this planet against any other nation at the same time while still having more conventional firepower in reserve than anyone else is unique to the US - and it's the only thing that ensures the freedom of nations like Taiwan. And no, America could easily afford both having both the best military and best health care system in the world - their current health care system just is bloated and inefficient, with corrupt insurers being responsible for most of the cost.

This should answer the first part of the question.

I won't go into as much detail to answer the second part, because this comment is already long enough, but the gist of it is that it's very difficult to produce change in a system that is designed to be deliberately slow-changing, which can be discouraging. This was done to protect it from demagogues like Trump and it has to some degree worked, except that the "bad guys" like Republicans and foreign actors that support them can of course engage in the same slow grinding away at institutions that well-meaning activists are engaging in, which has resulted in the "two Americas" we have now, firmly democratically-governed states and cities vs. Republican ones, which are drifting apart further and further in terms of economic success, standard of living, human rights, etc. Faster and radical change has been attempted to various degrees of success. The Suffragettes, Roosevelt's New Deal and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s are an example of significant change for the better happening comparatively swiftly, whereas the Occupy Wall Streets protests that occurred more recently are an example of a complete failure in every way.

I think the most difficult thing to accept for most Americans is that for all of their individuality, for all of their emphasis on being responsible for their own success and failures, the overwhelming majority of them are each mere single droplets in a current that will take them with them wherever it'll go, no matter what the individual is doing and thinking. There is nobody actually in control of this thing, not even their leaders. This isn't very different from the equally vast majority of other human beings now and throughout history, but it can be a very uncomfortable thought. There are just too many variables to this equation. This doesn't mean that equally determined and capable individuals can't produce a massive amount of change, but this is a once in a generation kind of thing. If you're not fine with being a small cog in a very large machine - and many people are not - then you'll be quickly discouraged, since even the most engaged activists are usually nothing more than that, which leads to high levels of attrition among such activists. Add to that the fact that it's costly (you have to take time off work, which is difficult if you're living paycheck to paycheck, like many Americans), risky and uncomfortable to engage in political activism and it's not really that surprising that there are perhaps not enough US citizens trying to defend and improve their country from the many issues that are primarily threatening it from within - with foreign actors like Russia, Iran and China having to do little more than fan the flames.

Who knows what will happen. Maybe Trump will screw up so badly that it'll birth a powerful new movement akin to Martin Luther King's that fundamentally changes the country - but given that American voters absolved him from killing more than one million of their own, I have my doubts.