There is a long-propagated myth in the United States that we are the greatest country that has ever existed. But this means that, instead of learning from our mistakes, we blame others for our gargantuan problems. In actuality, we are worse off in many ways than almost every other major industrialized country. Our life expectancy is decreasing; our infant mortality rate, homelessness, homicide rate and income disparity are increasing. We spend more than twice as much as any other country on health care, but have some of the poorest rates of coverage. We are also rapidly developing into one of the worst countries in the world in terms of the devastating effects of climate change. And we have the highest number of infections and deaths from Covid-19 than any other country.
Why is this? It's pretty easy to find a culprit: the Republican Party and Donald Trump, which refuse to investigate the real causes of these problems and to find solutions. But an even deeper reason, and one I find the Democratic Party also contributing to is: the myth that we are an exceptional country. We point to our Constitution, which many countries around the world have copied as a model of good, democratic government. But the Constitution is deeply flawed, designating African Americans, a large segment of the population, the Black slaves, to 3/5's of human status. And the only reason that was done was to insure that the Southern states would have voting clout equal to the Northern States. They had the largest number of slaves. Even after the Civil War, when the federal troops left the South, Jim Crow measures were introduced that essentially undid almost all the positive effects of the Civil War. I see the Civi War as essentially a failure, for African Americans were hardly any better off than they were as slaves.
Another indication that we are not better than all other countries is our shameful history with Native Americans. Nazi Germany pointed with admiration to our reducing the population of Native Americans from the millions for a few hundred thousands with our destroying their villages and forcing them into reservations. (They also learned from some of the draconian measures our states used to subjugate African Americans to deal with German Jews. And many of the Nazi high command thought some states’ measures were too severe!)
Our attitude that we are better than any other country makes it impossible to learn from others country’s mistakes. Just one example, pointed out by Fareed Zakaria, is the different way other countries have dealt with Covid-19. For example, Taiwan has had great success in quelling the virus, learning from the terrible time with the Sars epidemic with many people in 2003 becoming sick and dying. Because they were unprepared, the virus also spread rapidly in Taiwan and to other countries, mostly in Southeast Asia. But the Taiwanese learned from this mistake that other epidemics would probably occur, and were very well prepared when Covid-19 hit. As a result of their measures, they have had only 449 confirmed cases and 7 deaths. This in a country of 24 million people, with a large number living in Taipei, and in very close proximity to mainland China. Compare that to New York State: with a smaller population (19 million) they have had 447,000 cases and over 30,000 deaths.
Another example of how we don’t learn from other countries is, of course, the shamefully large number of homicides and suicides in our country due to the huge presence of firearms. Other countries, where it is very difficult to obtain a firearm legally, there are very few death.
What our attitude of hubris tends to create, in a large number of white Americans who have suffered from loss of jobs and lowered social and socioeconomic status is that, instead of blaming large corporations who have shipped factories and jobs overseas and the increasing phasing out of industries like coal and oil, they find scapegoats: the coastal elites, the rising status of African Americans and Central American immigrants. They've been taught, through the years, that the US is the best country in the history of the world, somehow anointed by God. And right-wing politicians exacerbate this problem by appealing to the sense of wounded pride instead of pointing to what other countries are doing we can learn from. We could help our people to learn new skills, work on creating much-needed infrastructure, and do what is needed to reduce the effects of climate change.