It’s a curious kind of arrogance that leads some Americans – particularly those in the Make America Great Again camp – to believe the rest of the world lies awake at night, pining for a one-way ticket to the United States. One Trump supporter recently claimed that every person in Europe, Canada, and Australia wants to move to America because “we are the best country on Earth.”
Let’s unpack that, shall we?
Because from where the rest of the world stands, Trump’s America doesn’t look like the shining city on a hill. It looks more like a gated compound where the lights flicker.
While Americans argue about banning books, vaccinations and bulldozing parts of the White House, most of Europe is busy transitioning to renewable energy, Canada is debating healthcare reform, and Australia – well, we’re wrestling with our own brand of political absurdity, but at least we’re not electing reality TV stars and calling it patriotism.
Trump’s supporters like to believe he was chosen by God to save America, but from the outside looking in, it seems he mostly saved himself – from taxes, accountability, and basic decency. His administration – round two – has turned the U.S. into a global spectacle: allies bewildered, adversaries emboldened, and the line between government and grievance blurred beyond recognition.
For all its flaws, the wider world still values things that Trumpism appears to sneer at: truth, science, humility, and yes – cooperation. In Australia, we don’t wake up wishing we could live in a nation where teachers are armed, or where journalists risk being called enemies of the people. Canadians aren’t longing for a healthcare system that bankrupts people for getting sick. And Europeans aren’t dreaming of swapping their centuries-old democracies for a populist reality show with executive privilege.
It’s not that people don’t admire parts of America. They do. Its innovation, culture, and resilience have long inspired the world. But the myth that everyone wants to be American – especially under Trump – belongs to an era long gone. The world has watched the United States trade its moral authority for performative outrage, its diplomacy for Twitter tantrums, and its global leadership for domestic division.
What’s the real turn-off here? For many, it’s the association with Trump himself. His polarising leadership style, divisive rhetoric, and policies that have strained international alliances have left a sour taste for those of us abroad – and even most Americans.
If anything, Trump’s America has become a cautionary tale – a warning about what happens when populism replaces principle and spectacle replaces substance.
So no, dear MAGA faithful, the rest of us aren’t desperate to join your self-proclaimed paradise. From where we stand, we’re quite content to keep our healthcare, our gun laws, and our collective sanity – thank you very much.
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Not mentioned is that US interpretation of religion is naive , simplistic ,uncritical, judgmental and totally offputting. It discolours so much else.
…and US foreign policy is based on CIA inspired covert and overt projects designed to force regime change in smaller nations that don’t wish to comply with US hegemonic overtures.
Excellent article Michael and highlights the reason why it needs new minds and new thinking!
The captioned photograph is quite disturbing, particularly that these devotees are permitted to enter the White House – what will they get up to when they have a ballroom?
As for the man they revere, the following is interesting:
“God Complex and Messiah Complex are both psychological terms used to describe individuals who exhibit grandiose beliefs about their own importance and abilities. However, there is a key difference between the two concepts. A God Complex typically involves a person believing they are all-powerful and infallible, while a Messiah Complex involves a person believing they are destined to save or rescue others. Both complexes can lead to destructive behaviour and difficulty in forming healthy relationships.”
It appears that this man has a God complex with a side dish of Messiah, the good news is that it can be treated but ideally he should be institutionalised.
Incidentally, the word is that Trump will seek a meeting with Kim Jong Un whilst in the Asia region.
It is quite rare for a president to meet up with a dictator but Kim says he’s up for it!
Trump, saturated with psychomaggoty misfittery, is an object of fear, revulsion, derision, scorn, outright hatred and some support from thieverylovers, profiteering wannabes, ambitious supremacists. And, Milei has courted bribery support from this foul follicle, to stave off disaster electorally. A survey of world politics has us gasping at the low standards and achievements. A I now must save us.., Ho ho.
Trump can just die before I’d want to go there. Quite happy to see the fall of that empire from a safe distance.
I dont even want to go on a Holiday there. for all its attractions and amazing scenery. Anywhere were everyone carries a gun, frightens the life out of me. Say something wrong to someone, and get shot. America you voted for this clown show so suck it up when it all goes wrong.
I had a colleague in the 70s who spent a year nursing in Dallas, Texas. He shared an apartment with an American dude. At the end of his contract, on the day he flew back to Oz, and having emptied his American bank account and now with a bag full of cash, his flatmate drove him to the airport, pulled a gun on him, robbed him of his money and threatened to shoot him if he reported the theft. He didn’t report it and thought himself lucky to escape without being shot. It seems you can’t even trust those who you thought you could trust. Something extremely pathological in America in relation to people’s attitude to money… what happens when you live in a dog-eat-dog society.
@Terry Mills.
Agreed Terry, the captioned photograph is disturbing, but I recall seeing the same photo captioned with: “Please, please more tax-cuts for the 1%.”
Unfortunately I neglected to make a copy and can’t now remember where I saw it.
There is a kind of atrophy in the US. The Democrats are frozen within it. It’s like they can’t see their way out of the absolute destruction this man is causing..of course with his mad buddies as well.
But the baseline is how is it that millions of Americans voted for a criminal and don’t appear to care. It’s a kind of malaise. But it’s also about angry Americans. They wanted more but were fed the big beautiful shit from Trump. And something wants them to believe in anything..no matter how criminal no matter how cruel or outrageous. It’s a shared delusion amongst them and Trump is the exploiter of that delusion. He plays on that. The deal is never the deal in reality. Ultimately it’s racism. It’s about sending ICE agents out to perpetuate his cruelty. So now you see anti immigration amongst Latinos who were also immigrants. But get this Trump can have Latinos working for him because he can pay them wages that wouldn’t keep your dog alive.
I can only hope that once Americans can see their brothers and sisters and parents and friends losing their (jobs as they are ) and suffering that it will be a true wake up call.
Karmala Harris put it simply, Trump became POTUS with 1/3 of the vote, with her having 1/3 and with the other 1/3 not voting, that is 2/3 of Americans not wanting Trump. A dysfunctional electoral system promoting abdication of responsibility. An electoral college that rallies political toadies in an onrush of sycophancy leveraged by big money.
But as if that’s not bad enough, Trump’s rantings, ravings and delivery of discombobulation in his electoral roadshow were very deliberately crafted by his christo-fascist, shadowy incorporated desperados and supremacist puppeteers.
With America’s frustration seething and its political and economic bankruptcy nigh, following the TrumpI road-test, the puppeteers decided to go full bore at the plan they’d been cooking for 100 years. And that’s capture via the shock and awe program now ravaging the land of hope and glory and the world.
Its scars will be deep and brutal, the ante is upped, as the program is failing due to Trump’s ignorance and narcissistic pathologies. America, has not demonstrated the knowledge, will and determination to explode its myths, fixations and structural dysfunctions. America, so damned, frightened, at war with itself, and approaching Trump saturation, is no place to be.
If they can overcome their own wiles and populist retreats, leaders and diplomats across the globe, hand in glove with reliant corporations are the only ones who stand a chance of steering the ghost-ship America to port for a re-fit. One might only, from a distance, keep an ear to the language and an eye on the manoeuvres.
This has the repulsive fingers of that pyschopath Stephen Miller all over it to Make America White Again.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/30/trump-refugee-restrictions-white-south-africans