A Rant On American Culture
Facade of the Boston Public Library. I took this photo myself. Aren’t this many flags a bit excessive?
Whenever I rant about the state of the United States and feel like running my fist through a wall or yelling something I’m going to regret, people often claim that “all countries have their problems.” And maybe they do, but I feel like that statement is a cop-out.
Not only are many problems not unique to a nation, but problems are not equal in their scale or scope. Some flaws in nations are worse than others, but the worst national sin in my opinion is the inability to solve problems when they arise. The thing I hate most about America is that no matter how many people protest in support of a policy that’s taken for granted in another country, nothing ever changes for the better. This stands in stark contrast to other countries, where demonstrations do lead to social change.
Let’s talk about gun violence first of all. Among wealthy nations, the United States is a major outlier on this issue. The United Kingdom had one school shooting in 1996, the Dunblane massacre, and then they issued a buyback program. Like the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in the United States, an elementary school was targeted. It’s horrific that Dunblane happened at all, but at least something was done, whereas it’s often said Sandy Hook was the end of the gun control debate on this side of the pond.
Australia also had a high-profile mass killing in 1996, the Port Arthur massacre, and then they issued a gun buyback program. Port Arthur, Tasmania was and is a tourist destination, so you might compare this to the Las Vegas shooting in 2017. Nothing was done after Vegas except the banning of bump stocks, which was overturned in 2024 by the Supreme Court. And nothing will ever be done.
Australia’s Royal Flying Doctor Service tending to a patient. For free, as Reddit will love to remind you. Image taken from r/Pics.
Now let’s talk about health care. The United States is famously the only country where health care costs any significant amount of money, to the point where there’s a popular TV series where a man resorts to cooking crystal meth to pay his medical bills. And let’s be real: Just like with gun control, if nothing changed after the COVID-19 pandemic, nothing will ever change. Instead we elected a President who just rescinded Biden’s executive order to make prescription drugs cheaper. So if anything, it will become far worse.
I’ll be honest: I’m a bit of a pessimist by nature, but even I never thought that the loss of over a million people to COVID would have been memory-holed so easily. If we couldn’t make healthcare cheaper, then at least we could maybe not elect the man responsible for those million deaths to hold the highest office in the land again.
But that’s exactly what we did. We forgot about COVID just like we forgot about mass shootings, only on a far greater scale. That’s how depraved this country is.
And yet, it still gets worse.
Climate change is upon us. The year 2024 was the hottest year on record globally, and we’re sure breaking a lot of records, aren’t we? The day after the most recent election, it was in the upper seventies in Massachusetts, in November, and I felt like the weather was mocking us for electing Donald Trump.
Oh yeah, did I mention that we elected Donald Trump? He literally just withdrew from the Paris climate accords last night when nobody was watching. In 2017, this was a major spectacle during which Trump gave a laughable speech about having the cleanest air and cleanest water. This time, crickets. The only three other countries that aren’t in the agreement are Iran, Libya, and Yemen. Look at the company we’re keeping - two failed states and a theocratic dictatorship. The best people, the best.
Now, in practical terms, I don’t know how much the Paris agreement matters given that it’s non-binding even for its remaining signatories. Private companies are still reducing their emissions (for now). And let’s be honest, most other countries aren’t doing quite enough either, even if they’re doing far more than the United States in terms of switching to renewable energy. But if nothing else, it’s bad PR for the USA and makes us a major pariah globally. Which we should be.
Climate disasters are not unique to the United States, but again - they’re doing more to mitigate them elsewhere. As Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and others ramp up their renewable capacity, Los Angeles is ravaged by fires. The most significant U.S. response to these increasingly intense wildfires is a mediocre CBS TV show about conventionally attractive firefighters. Just look at it
Official CBS promotional image for “Fire Country.” Image taken from Kate Hamberger’s website.
In my mind, the biggest problem with the United States is the culture.
When I visited downtown Boston the other day, I walked past the Boston Public Library (pictured at the top of this article). It wasn’t the only building with an American flag on it, and I think that’s really quite telling.
Look at this way: In my mind, if you are American like me, there is nothing to be proud of. This is the worst country in the world, at least in terms of what we do to other countries, and we should be ashamed of our flag. But even in countries that are far greater nations by any objective standard, “flag worship” isn’t a thing to nearly the same extent. Redditors from outside the United States are always very proud to tell you that they hardly ever see their own country’s flag flown, even in front of government buildings. This thread is a great example.
Furthermore, the Pledge of Allegiance is pretty fucked up as well. There’s an American flag in almost every public school classroom, whether its community may be black or white, urban or rural, rich or poor. Every morning, students put their heads on their hearts and face the flag, saying a series of lines about pledging allegiance to the flag. Like, it’s just a piece of fabric! If you saw it in another country, or even in an evangelical church here, you’d probably think it’s a brainwashing ritual.
And yet, in many ways, the United States is like a cult. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, we tell our children stories about how we’re the greatest country in the world. And maybe we were at one point - putting a man on the moon first was pretty neat. But no longer. And if we want to be that great nation again, we need to make it that way.
Now, there’s a famous saying “Your freedom to swing your arms ends in my face”. In other words, you can do whatever you want as long as you’re not harming anyone else.
If electing Trump only impacted the United States, that would be one thing. I still wouldn’t have voted for him, but it wouldn’t be such a crime against humanity to make Donald Trump President. However, the fact is that we remain among the most powerful and influential nations on Earth (even if we’re not the greatest). Progress against climate change was at stake, as were the nuclear codes amid existing wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere. And that assumes Trump doesn’t start new wars by invading Panama, Greenland, or even Canada.
In other words, it’s going to be a very long four years.
