Fareed Zakaria has quoted an article by Wade Davis under this heading in his “Global Briefing” of August 16, 2020. I find it very relevant and poignant for all Americans across the board: native or immigrant; black, brown or white. I would like to share with you. For example the author argues that “This evident fall of America has been brought on by Americans’ stubborn refusal to prize the common good”. He strikingly points out that “ the country’s individualistic streak as almost hedonistic, leading the US to discredited policies—from health care to guns—and a wider social collapse”. He illustrates these features by “contrasts this with the social democracy of Canada and Europe. The full article, if you are interested:

The Case Against America

If a trenchant broadside against America fits your bill for Sunday reading, a Rolling Stone essay by University of British Columbia anthropologist Wade Davis indeed cuts deep. Davis touches on familiar themes—the failed response to Covid-19 and the perceived ineptitude of President Trump—and he concurs with a point others have argued: “As American doctors and nurses eagerly awaited emergency airlifts of basic supplies from China, the hinge of history opened to the Asian century.

But he goes further, indicting US polit”ical culture more broadly. This evident fall of America, he argues, has been brought on by Americans’ stubborn refusal to prize the common good. He paints the country’s individualistic streak as almost hedonistic, leading the US to discredited policies—from health care to guns—and a wider social collapse.

Davis contrasts this with the social democracy of Canada and Europe, and he offers an example: the experience of Canada’s high earners when shopping for groceries. “The checkout person may not share your level of affluence, but they know that you know that they are getting a living wage because of the unions. And they know that you know that their kids and yours most probably go to the same neighborhood public school. … they know that you know that if their children get sick, they will get exactly the same level of medical care not only of your children but of those of the prime minister.” American politicians scoff at Scandinavian socialism, but Danes, for instance, work fewer hours than Americans, get paid about the same after taxes, and participate in the workforce at higher rates—and, in exchange, get free education, health care, and more. The US, for reasons that baffle Davis, has chosen a system in which health care is expensive and the “vast majority of Americans—white, black, and brown—are two paychecks removed from bankruptcy.”

The election of Trump and the failure to handle Covid-19 may have punctuated American global dominance, Davis suggests, but it’s the culmination of something else: the discrediting of the American dream.