Just ask Emmett Till.
…and then (and this is from a Canadian’s pov) it’s broadcast to the world, including the suggestion that, of course, everybody really wants to be an American.
This didn’t start with the 51st state crap; it’s always been there but, of course, it’s increased exponentially since this administration. I’ve also seen this crap stated explicitly by the US special envoy to Greenland, about Greenlanders.
A lot of Canadians (I don’t have actual data btw) don’t regard the 51st state thing as a “bargaining tool by Trump” or a “sign of affection” - as stated by Hoekstra - or as a joke. A lot of us take it as a threat, as an impending manifest destiny thing.
I once met a guy in a dingy, dusty little edge-of-outback town in Australia, a co-worker in a place where I was on a working holiday [1]. Chatting with him, I discovered he’d never been outside the town he lived in except for the occasional visit, once a year or so, to the cinema and the shops at another small town about 20 miles away.
He seemed confused that I thought that was odd, because ‘This is the best place in the world, right here, why would I ever want to go anywhere else?’
Nickname ‘Sparky’- he said it was because he was so bright and cheerful, others said it was actually short for ‘not the brightest spark’ ↩︎
U.S. companies spend roughly $360 billion to $390 billion each year on advertising.
I have to imagine they do this because of the huge amount of data that exists that insists that minds can never be altered … opinions can never be shaped … peoples’ POV can never be changed … by advertising.
Or … y’know … the opposite.
Here i assume msmith537 was being ironic.
Poe’s Law … and all that.
Countries the I’ve lived in for at least six months:
Russia
Ukraine
Singapore
Kosovo
Indonesia
Afghanistan
Iraq
Countries that I’ve visited for shorter periods:
Canada
Grenada
Belize
Guatemala
Chile
Peru
Uk
Germany
Austria
Greece
Serbia
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
Malaysia
Kuwait
Jordan
Kenya
Turkey
Philippines
Poland
Czech Republic (at the time)
Hungary
What’s your point?
I’d rather make a different point.
With some 345 Million people currently living in the USA, qualitative discussions of perceptions of greatness are effectively worthless.
Which is why I tend to ask what somebody means by ‘greatest,’ and then consult the best available empirical data that accurately describes that aspect.
Sometimes, even large scale polling – when it’s the best/only way to frame the topic – is worth considering, particularly (IMHO) when its results appear to be orthogonal to the quantitative/empirical data.
eg, “Obamacare” polled very poorly while the actual elements of the Affordable Health Care Act polled extremely well.
Or, as almost any marketer will tell you, when it demonstrates the often wide chasm between what consumers say they like/prefer and what their (purchasing) behaviors tell you they actually like/prefer.
Speaking as an American, i took it as a threat, especially the talk about Greenland. And i was really anxious about a planned trip to Denmark.
(The trip to Denmark went fine. Even when one of the legs of my flight home was cancelled, the airport officials treated me very nicely. The folks in customer and airport security were pleasant to me. And of course the people i was visited did not blame me, personally, for my country’s excesses. Denmark is a very nice country. Maybe one of the best. 
)
America was absolutely threatening both Canada and Greenland, and the civilized world understood that.
I’ve posted this elsewhere, but it belongs here, too:
Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.
–The Princess Bride
[Also: Donald Trump’s foreign policy]
I watched the Olympics on CBC. Half the ads were about how Canada and Ontario were working to diversify their trading partners and build up their industrial and nuclear capability.
France’s Europe Minister said during the 2024 election: we cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of Wisconsin voters every four years.
One thing Trump has done is rapidly dismantle America’s global hegemony. The collapse of an empire can take decades or a world war, but he accomplished it in record time. The developed world is facing the reality and figuring out what comes next.
I can’t tell if you’re serious or just being sarcastic.
But if you’re serious, this sounds like an appallingly myopic view coming from a place of comfortable white privilege. America is indeed a fine place for the wealthy white Christian living in a gated community where they are protected from the “greatness” of the rest of the country. The reality is that on any objective analysis I’ve seen, the US ranking on quality of life that evaluates factors like freedom and happiness is mediocre at best.
The citizens of many countries like where they live and are proud of their country and its traditions, and Americans are entitled to do the same. But I don’t know of any nation where patriotism has been elevated to such an obsession as in the US where it seems to be practically mandatory and indoctrinated in young children in school. Western democracies in general know they’re not perfect, even though they rank far higher than the US on quality-of-life rankings, and strive to improve instead of declaring themselves perfect. And they have universal health care and strong social safety nets.
I think you’ve gotten to the nub of the issue. The countries that do better in any number of metrics do better precisely because they don’t presume they’ve already achieved perfection.
[I’ve offered this before …]
Some people’s tribalism born of insecurity won’t allow them to see when there’s a better way of doing something.
Those people tend to revel in pointing to worst practices – who does something worse than the US (eg, “Just try being an illegal alien in Mexico or Saudi Arabia” or “Maybe trying being an LGBTQ+ person in a Muslim country!”).
And why not? It allows those people to be complacent and smug.
But those same people won’t ever look at best practices – who’s doing something better than we are – and then try to emulate it/them?
For the “American Exceptionalism” crowd who think America is great, to whatever degree it is great, it got that way in spite of them, not because of them.
“American Exceptionalism” is a clear impediment to genuine and meaningful progress.
Constantly being told we’re the best is what we got instead of health care, an appropriate work life balance and longer lifespans.
About 35 years in the USA, about 15 in Canada, about 3 in the UK, and a summer in Italy (working, not just a long vacation).
Is this sincere, or is it sarcasm?
I’m going to add that, like many Americans, I grew up with close family who weren’t American. I also grew up in a border town (San Diego / Tijuana), so it was very easy to leave the USA and see another system, from socialized medicine to grinding poverty. Most Americans, however, don’t have close family in other countries and don’t live on a border.
Were you deployed as part of a peacekeeping force or something?
I guess I don’t really have a point other than I think your argument is stupid and incoherent and politically motivated.
US citizens “learn” the USA is the “best” country the same way Greeks, Brazilians, Poles, everyone else learns their country is “best”. Because it’s where they grew up and that’s where all their friends and family and everyone they know lives.
That is to say, people tend to take pride in where they came from, even if there are obvious flaws. That is something I’ve found to be more or less universal. Everyone knows ..say..Newark, NJ isn’t the greatest city in the world. But don’t say that to someone born and raised there.
As to learning the USA is the “best” country in that we are arguably one of, if not the most powerful nation since WWII in terms of raw economic, military, and cultural influence that’s pretty straightforward. That you can figure out from watching the news or picking up a history or economics book or looking at any other number of factual sources. That’s just mostly raw numbers.
If the discussion is which country is “best” because it has the best standard of living for someone’s particular lifestyle or has the least “problematic” history or you like that nation’s policies on health care, taxation, immigration, education, energy, railroad adoption or any of a million other factors, that’s a more complicated question.
Just looking at your list of countries. I’ve been to many of them or have friends and family who have been or lived there. But even if one of them is the “Greatest Place on Earth” in terms of however you want to define that. I would still have to adjust to the fact that I would be moving to a country where I may not speak the language, know the customs, or actually know anyone there.
Also given the numbers of people looking to immigrate to the USA, I think there is still a perception globally that the USA is pretty “great”, flaws and all.