To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country

This.

I've spent most of my adult life outside of the US, after having spent my childhood and university in Florida. Now, when I travel in the States, I see a _lot_ of good everywhere I go, but it's undeniable that other countries are doing certain things better (I'd argue that nobody has it all together, though Singapore comes mighty close in my book).

This is actually a great thing for the US in many ways -- we've spent almost a century in the lead, having to figure out what works through trial and error. Now the entire world is participating in this trial and error, and we are (in theory, if we're willing to be a bit humble and admit we don't know it all) able to benefit from the discoveries made without paying for the trials.

There will probably never be a repeat of the 1950s, where the United States dominated the world in almost every category, but ... who cares? The 1950s sucked in a lot of ways for a lot of people, most Americans included. That doesn't mean we can't maintain parity, and exceed in certain areas in which we've made priorities.

As someone who has lived in the US, AU & the EU in a few places I'd have to say this article is great. It's something you wind up doing if you live in other places.

America is #1 in quite a few things, such as software, just try naming non-US software companies that matter, it's an interesting exercise. Also the US highway system is excellent, the US's culture of entrepreneurship is also awesome. The best US colleges are the best in the world. US computer games, TV shows (Breaking Bad/Mad Men/Louie/The Sopranos etc) and other things are great from the US.

But in many things the rest of the rest world laughs at the US. US High School education, for instance, is not well regarded. The US health care system is regarded as scary and pretty poor.

There are even other countries that are really good at seeing things overseas and copying. Australia, for instance, got a points based immigration system from Canada, Universal Saving for retirement from Singapore and looked around the world for ways to reform the Australian Reserve Bank.

I agree with this. My eyes opened I ways I never expected by living abroad. I thought America was safe and it is compared to Somalia but not compared to may other contries. I didn't notice this because I've been trained to ignore it. I've been trained not to walk down dark alleys. I've been trained not to leave anything visible in a car when I park it or else it will get broken into. When it had been broken into Ive been trained to blame myself for leaving something visible or parking too near the wrong neighborhood. But living abroad I learned some countries don't have these issues. Then benefit from them too. There are vending machines outdoors all over Japan for example, in America they'd have long since been vandalized. In Japan there are amazing double size car stereos because they don't have to worry about car stereo theft. Sorry I don't have better examples at the moment.

I also learned many false assumptions. For example even though logically as an athiest i knew morals don't come from a deity the number of assumptions and thought paths I had ... Uh.. Thought or read about that clearly came from a christian influenced society really stuck out.

Cultural differences as well like maybe there's some positive aspects to a more collectivits society vs an individualist society like America.

It's hard to articulate how much impact living abroad had.

Another is just how much "yay us!!!" there is. I watched a Ken Burns documentary where it seemed that every other line was "Only in America". We've heard that so much we take it for granted without actually checking if it's true. Every country has this issue. It's only living outside that will make it stick out IMO

In not saying America sucks. Each country and culture has trade offs but until you truly spend time experiencing those differences you'll likely be unaware such differences even exist.

Unfortunately I don't expect enough people will ever live abroad

It is already great, there is no need!

It's pretty telling that even an article trying to question the culture of unquestionable-exceptionalism is still chock-full of jingoistic language that says "if we just fix a few things we'll be the best country on earth again", as if such a thing was or is factual or even possible.

Not "exceptionalism is a myth" but "exceptionalism needs a new paint job". This is what passes for dissent in mainstream American discourse.