# How and/or where do US citizens learn that the USA is the best country in the world etc?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-or-where-do-us-citizens-learn-that-the-usa-is-the-best-country-in-the-world-etc/1031943>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 26, 2026, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-or-where-do-us-citizens-learn-that-the-usa-is-the-best-country-in-the-world-etc/1031943 "2026-07-26T22:32:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 217

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**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-or-where-do-us-citizens-learn-that-the-usa-is-the-best-country-in-the-world-etc/1031943/217 "2026-08-07T21:34:56Z")

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> [@Why doesn’t Stalin’s version of communism work? “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their labor?”](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesn-t-stalin-s-version-of-communism-work-from-each-according-to-their-abilities-to-each-according-to-their-labor/1032137/89):
>
> > [@Why doesn’t Stalin’s version of communism work? “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their labor?”](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesn-t-stalin-s-version-of-communism-work-from-each-according-to-their-abilities-to-each-according-to-their-labor/1032137/86):
> >
> > Well, you currently have the most ruthlessly corrupt, self-serving, and utterly incompetent president the US has ever seen. Where are these controls and why aren’t they working? Congress is supposed to be a check on presidential power, and Congress is AWOL, having literally done nothing – they may as well not exist. The Supreme Court has done very little, and Trump is working around the very few rulings that have been against him. Meanwhile important national institutions are being seriously damaged and international relations with the US are at a historic low point. So what’s being done?
> 
> And in a few years someone else will be in charge and the political landscape will look different. The United States isn’t going to scatter into its component states like the Soviet Union.

I’m responding to this here as it seems more appropriate to this thread rather than the digression that somehow got started in the Stalin thread in GD.

There are two big problems with that attitude. Do you think that if a bright and capable Democrat was elected president in 2028, that everything would suddenly be alright again? Great damage isn’t repaired that quickly, and Trump is currently in the process of wreaking total havoc on important national institutions, poisoning international relations, and trying to undermine the electoral process itself. It may take a generation or more to rebuild international trust in the US, if it ever happens, and the Supreme Court will be politically skewed for decades.

The second problem is that there’s no guarantee of a Democratic victory in 2028, either in the presidential race or in Congress, especially with Trump and his cronies meddling with the electoral system. There’s at least an even chance that a lunatic like JD Vance could be the next president, assuming that Trump himself doesn’t try to run, on the same basis as most other things he’s been doing the last couple of years, that basis being “who’s gonna stop me?”. Regardless, Vance might be even worse, having similar far-right biases and authoritarian inclinations, but not disadvantaged by being ineffably stupid.

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