(Most) Americans Already Know Our Nation’s Issues, Thanks

We don’t need smugness, we need sympathy.

Photo by Jake Ingle on Unsplash.

I am well aware that many Americans are insufferable. Compared to other countries, we are uniquely jingoistic and ignorant. Our politics make The Onion’s job easy.

Still, I wish more animosity would be shifted to the greedy, warmongering, and indifferent politicians and corporations that create so many of our problems, rather than the relatively powerless average Americans. The majority of us don’t want this either.

Yet I’ve encountered so many people from other white-majority, affluent countries, online and offline, who feel the need to point out how screwed-up our systems are. And not to the Americans who support those systems.

But remarking how someone dying after not getting the insulin they needed wouldn’t happen in your country is about as helpful and tactful as commenting how you have food at home on a post about someone dying of hunger.

And whether Americans want the same for themselves or not, it’s not news that Canada, for instance, has a more accessible and affordable healthcare system.

Many of us do want similar systems. 66% of Americans want “a national, government-administered health insurance plan,” “65%…say gun laws should be stricter.”…