THE USA at 250
Many, if not most, Americans think that the US is and always has been the best of nations, despite evidence that it is no better nor worse than many others. For the 250th many want “paeans to the pioneer spirit, military power and business civilization as the embodiment of their country’s perfect, flawless revolution…” They disregard Indian removal and extermination, slavery and Jim Crow, wars of conquest and empire against Mexico, and against Spain for Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, the horror of Vietnam, the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, and now the debacle in Iran. They also disregard the extraordinary inequality the US tolerates inside the country, symbolized by the imminent appearance of the first trillionaire.
What accounts for the overweening and unmerited sense of superiority of so many Americans? It is explained by one fact: the US has been an economic success for most descendants of immigrants of European heritage and those willing to live by the norms created by these. Consequently, many Americans are oblivious of our past and complacent about our present moment, “defined by the mobilization of market frenzy, machineries of war, deportation deliriums and nativist passions.”
Sources: The Economist, 6/11/26 and The Guardian, 6/28/26