Quote:
Originally Posted by pavementtune
And seeing lines like the US is still better than the majority of other countries, in a week where it has the worst riots in 50 years, and in a year where it somehow does worse in preventing people from dying in a pandemic than the majority of other countries,
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The US has a cultural presence in the world much wider than its actual population and influence, so its struggles get magnified and scrutinized and discussed much more than those in other countries. Yes, we're having bad riots right now, but there are straight up civil wars/genocides going on in a number of states--Syria, Libya, China, Myanmar, Yemen, etc. etc. Look at central America, look at Mexico, which has been engaged in a civil war for years and years that nobody ever talks about. And though the media has found its numbers to claim that "the US leads the world in coronavirus deaths," that ignores both a) all the countries that either areen't counting or are manipulating their numbers more than we are, and b) the per-capita distinction. When looked at per-capita, we're doing better than most of Western Europe.(
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality)
I can understand that making the "eh, it's not too bad" argument can seem like I'm minimizing the real and present problems the US is facing right now, and I apologize for that bad timing. But I've stated several times why I think that framing the US as in decline is counterproductive to leftist goals, which I want to see realized as much as anybody, but nobody has engaged with me on that, so whatever. I don't feel like anyone is engaging with me on any of this at all really, so I will give up.