Hello from Australia.
No. You’re an absolute global laughingstock. I do not know how to convey to Americans how utterly ridiculous their country looks right now.
We haven’t always agreed with your military’s decisions and your incessant need to invade every place and constantly get involved in wars – but, as a country, you had quite a good reputation, and we all liked you for the most part.
Then you elected Donald Trump…and nobody could quite believe it. When we first heard of him, we (the rest of the world) assumed that he was running as a joke and that nobody would actually be silly enough to vote for him. Then after a while, we realized that he wasn’t joking, and that he was just a genuinely awful – and strangely cartoonish – person. The worst realization was that there are people in your country who listened to him speak and actually supported his message and agreed with what he was saying. I didn’t realize how many dreadfully racist, sexist, morally bankrupt and blatantly stupid individuals resided in America until Donald Trump launched his campaign. I was astounded, as was everybody I know.
You see, every country has a stereotype. They’re usually quite funny – for example, the stereotype about the Canadians is that they’re exceedingly friendly, moose-riding lumberjacks who like hockey and maple syrup. I’m not sure if Americans are aware of this, but the stereotype for Americans was always that you’re unintelligent, obnoxious, gun-toting rednecks. Now, we (the rest of the world) always assumed that this was just a funny stereotype, and that it didn’t accurately portray Americans. It was just a funny joke, right? Right?
Wrong. Donald Trump and his supporters embody what was supposed to be a funny caricature of an American. Outrageously ignorant, stupid, loud-mouthed, arrogant and lacking in any kind of empathy or self-awareness. Not only that, but he’s dangerously incompetent, entirely unpresidential and a complete and utter embarrassment. I’m not even American, but I feel so much second-hand embarrassment for you guys. The entire world is laughing at you. We were originally only joking about you guys being half-witted blowhards, but you proved us right. Honestly, if I were an American travelling the world, I would lie and tell people that I was Canadian. I would be embarrassed to be an American right now.
Your country was supposed to be the leader of the free world. You were supposed to be ahead of the pack. You constantly brag about your own greatness and almost every word you say is dripping with American exceptionalism. You lead us all to believe that you were this great, free, just country that believed in liberty and equal rights and moving forward into a better future. What happened to you? Your ‘President’ is an absolute joke. He’s cartoonish. He can barely string a sentence together, he knows absolutely nothing about politics or foreign policy and he humiliates you at every available opportunity. You ignore his blatant corruption, you allow things to slide, you become complacent and then you get infuriated when the rest of the world suggests that perhaps your country isn’t as great as you think it is.
But our amusement and our mockery turned to utter horror when things started to unfold. He has brought out the very worst in you. The racism, the sexism, the disgusting antiquated ‘values’ that should have been stamped out after WW2. You have Nazis feeling emboldened enough to march in the streets. You have a governor in Florida who was elected even after calling his black opponent a ‘monkey’ and running a racist facebook page with KKK-esque content. You have children being slaughtered in their schools. You have Puetro Rico. You have children being ripped from their parents at the Mexican border and put in internment camps. You have toddlers representing themselves in immigration court. You have documents being destroyed so that these children cannot be reunited with their parents. Several of these children have been adopted to American families and will likely never see their birth parents again. Women in these detention centers have been sexually assaulted. Children have been sexually molested. Pregnant women have had miscarriages that were ‘ignored’ by ICE workers. You have legal residents with green cards being deported without due process. You have a Navajo councilman being mobbed by conservatives demanding to know if he’s an ‘illegal’. You have people fearing for their lives and the lives of their children – sending them to school each day with all their immigration papers in their backpacks in case somebody calls ICE on them, as your Secretary for Education suggested that schools should start doing.
Then you have Brett Kavanaugh. Then you have all the men who think that what he did is perfectly fine and normal – and who have sent Dr Ford and her family death and rape threats, forcing them to flee their home multiple times. Then you have all the men who think that what Trump bragged about doing is perfectly fine and normal. Then you have Roy Moore – a literal pedophile who ran in Alabama and was endorsed by Donald Trump and his supporters. Many of which mocked his victims and sent them death and rape threats.
Then you have the Russia situation, where, even if your President isn’t under Russia’s thumb (he so obviously is, by the way) he absolutely humiliated you in-front of a hostile foreign power. I cringed watching him in Helsinki, feeling so much embarrassment of behalf of our American friends. The leader of your country sold you out to Russia. So much for the leader of the free world, huh?
Then your President has the nerve – the unmitigated hubris – to suggest that other countries are ‘shitholes’. He decides to institute a travel ban. He decides to make disgusting comments about immigrants from non-white countries, even openly suggesting that you need more from (white) places like Norway. Then he borrows his slogan ‘America First’ from the KKK. Yeah, that happened.
To be perfectly honest with you – and it pains me to say this, because the Americans used to be our friends- your country has become the real shithole. It’s an absolute disgrace and the entire world has lost so much respect for you. We understand that a lot of Americans firmly oppose this President and his policies, and we don’t hold him against you – but those of you that do support him are honestly the scum of the earth and I can’t quite understand how you got to this point. How low can you sink?
So to answer your question: no. You are not more respected under Trump. The fact that there are Trump supporters who believe that you are is absolutely ludicrous. The entire world thinks you’re utterly ridiculous, morally bankrupt and a real threat to world peace. You had a great country and you allowed it to descend into utter chaos. Half of the time we are laughing at your incompetent, buffoonish imbecile of a President, and the rest of the time we are living in fear of what kind of awful things he’ll do next – while your people just watch in complete apathy.
Most of you sat back and allowed this to happen, and your complicity might be the most terrifying thing of all.
