Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
I used to be proud to be an American. Now I’m a little bit embarrassed about it. While staying in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, about a year ago, we met a Danish gentleman staying in our building. He was an urbane and sophisticated fellow who was a great conversationalist. Over drinks by the pool one afternoon, he asked, “What is the American thing about abortion?” The Supreme Court had just overturned Roe -v- Wade and abortion had become illegal in some states, even in cases of rape or incest. He was frankly amazed this could happen.
I found it hard to answer him—because there is no good answer. The United States is one of the few developed nations that has taken away a woman’s right to control her own body. I could have explained how the religious right has wormed its way into politics and that a wide—and ugly—puritanical streak still runs through the country, but I didn’t want to. I was embarrassed about it.
A few months later, I was working at my part-time wine store job when a group of college students came in. They asked for a good reasonable red and I pointed them toward some pinots. One young woman, who turned out to be a French exchange student, asked about the burgundies. We found one, and as we were checking out, I asked her how she liked the United States. She said she loved it here, but that her parents were very worried about guns. After they left and I started thinking about what she had said, I realized that America must look like a country of trigger-happy barbarians to the Europeans. Or Asians. Or Africans. Guns, with some exceptions, are illegal in most countries. If my Danish friend asked about why there are so many guns in America, I wouldn’t have a good rational answer—because there is none.
As the character Will McAvoy in HBO’s The Newsroom said when asked why the United States is the greatest country in the world, “America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. It sure used to be.” He goes on, in an elegant and well-articulated monologue, to list the qualities that once made our country great: courage, truthfulness, sacrifice, valor, resourcefulness, integrity, honesty, and good old Yankee ingenuity.
We used to respect the truth, but have just lived through one of the ugliest, most expensive, and divisive campaign seasons in our history. Candidates high and low flooded the airwaves and social media with disinformation and outright lies. The truth was not only ignored, it was denigrated and mocked. Preposterous tales about immigrants eating pets, taking over Midwest towns, and making our cities unsafe multiply like rabbits over social media. Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos tried, mostly successfully, to buy their ways into the Oval Office.
We used to respect our scientific community, but because of lies and conspiracy theories, a significant portion of the public now distrusts scientists, doctors, and researchers (although they still love their technology). Because of this disinformation, thousands of citizens believed there was nothing to fear during the pandemic. They refused to wear masks, insisting that the personal freedom not to wear one superseded everything else, including public health. President Trump downplayed the severity of the outbreak, even criticizing and denouncing his own surgeon general. Thousands died as a result.
We used to respect loyalty and patriotism, but to get his hands back on the levers of power, Donald Trump has allied himself with dictators like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Viktor Orban, openly declaring that he wants to be a dictator, too. We should believe him. He fomented an armed insurrection of the United States Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021, an act some might label as treason. He has shown he will stop at nothing to attain absolute power. He has even proposed opening internment camps and using the military against protestors and prosecuting and imprisoning his political enemies.
While much of this divisiveness, distrust, and disinformation can be laid at the doorstop of Donald Trump and power-hungry elements of the Republican Party and right-wing think tanks, PACs, and Christian nationalists (see Project 2025), the rise of contempt and hatred toward the values and qualities which once made America great—this great moral rot which has spread across our society like a cancer—comes from within, from our citizenry. Yes, Trump and his minions exploited the fear and anger of millions of Americans, fooling them into believing his way would lead them into happier and more prosperous lives, but they allowed themselves to be fooled. And now he’s fooled us again.
What happened to common sense? What happened to trust? What happened to believing in ourselves and our country? How did we get so gullible? What have we become?
Granted, the segment of our society that revel in anger and hate and clothe themselves (literally) in the words and beliefs of a crass and felonious demagogue is a minority. But it is growing. Many—maybe even a majority—still believe in science, truth, education, and the free press, but our voices are being drowned out by anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, alien abductees, and QAnon adherents.
America has become a world-class laughingstock. Not only did we elect an ignorant and arrogant buffoon once; we did it twice.
Not only do we allow anyone buy semi-automatic weapons and allow our children to be murdered in their schools over and over again, we keep electing politicians who do nothing about it.
Not only do we deprive women autonomy over their own bodies, we allow draconian public policies cause women with at-risk pregnancies to die because therapeutic abortions are illegal.
Not only are the mainstream press and media treated with contempt and disdain, wild conspiracy theories and disinformation are given as much—or more—credence than reporting from established and reliable news sources.
Not only is the middle-class dying a slow death, but the rich are getting richer and richer and richer.
Not only are our public-school boards being taken over by far-right book-banning antigay, anti-trans, anti DEI regressives, teachers are being fired for teaching students about our proud history of slavery, civil rights, and labor unions.
None of this will go away when Donald Trump finally exits the political limelight. He did not create this new America. He merely cultivated what was already there. The wild west gun mentality, the puritanical pro-lifers, and the anti-vaxxers were always among us. We grew up with them, know them, and work with them.
What happened was that Trump and his MAGA Republicans created an environment where contempt, anger, and hate was legitimized. Lies became as good as facts. Belief overruled science, and the Second Amendment became more important the lives of our children. And now he’s back.
Is there a way back? Can we make America smart again? Can we make America respectable again? Or will we be doomed to be a nation of gullible fools scoffed at by the rest of the world?