Love them or hate them, everyone has an opinion about Americans.
Some see them as optimistic, driven and generous. There are those who consider them arrogant, ignorant, and selfish. These perspectives are drawn from the saturation of American news, business and culture in the daily lives of the world’s population. They are punctuated by an emphasis on American politics that seemingly highlights vast differences between the United States and other developed nations.
The election of Donald Trump was a signature inflection point that underscored this. Many foreigners could scarcely believe that Americans would elevate such a man to the Oval Office; others were not in the least surprised. To them it confirmed their instincts about Americans: that Trump, with his manifest character flaws, was their avatar. Trump’s supporters revelled in their scorn.
From a distance America is often portrayed as a dystopian society with an obsession for guns, greed and God. Healthcare is inaccessible and ruinously expensive. Education is subpar, inequality rampant, and workers’ rights are atrocious. Australians, Canadians and Europeans, each with greater government investment in serving public needs, express bewilderment that Americans would tolerate such conditions. American attitudes appear alien to them.
This characterisation misses fundamental facts. First, Trump did not receive a majority of votes cast in either of his presidential campaigns. He narrowly won the first time thanks to an archaic electoral system that tipped the scales his way. Moreover his approval rating during his presidency never exceeded 50%, a first in presidential history. Trump, and what he represented, was opposed by a majority of Americans throughout his tenure.
Second, most Americans support similar government policies that citizens in other advanced nations enjoy. Americans would welcome greater investment in such programs, and the higher taxes required to pay for them.
Healthcare
Anyone who has spent time in America is familiar with the byzantine nature of its medical system and the potential for bankruptcy from any medical misfortune.
The United States spends 17% of GDP every year on healthcare, versus the typical range of 8-12% in similar OECD nations. Despite the extra investment, health outcomes in America are worse on a range of measures. Next to comparable countries, America ranks last on life expectancy, last on premature deaths, worst on disease burden, and worst on maternal mortality. If America spent the same amount per capita as the second-most expensive nation, Germany, it would save 5% of GDP per year. That’s more than $1 trillion annually. Yet Germany still outranks the US on public health performance.
Why won’t Americans implement a national health insurance program funded by government? They would if they could. Medicare, introduced in 1965 for senior citizens, does exactly this. It also serves people with disabilities. Medicaid is a parallel program targeting low-income Americans. Nearly two-thirds of Americans want a national government system to provide healthcare. Richard Nixon attempted to achieve this during his presidency; Bill Clinton also tried. Both men failed. Barack Obama settled for the more modest goal of expanding existing access to insurance schemes via federal subsidies and mandates. He extended coverage to 20 million Americans, but even that ignited a decade-long fight.
Gun control
More than 300 people are shot every day in America. One third of them die, with around two-thirds of that number being suicides. Every school child is taught active shooter drills. By any measure, gun violence is an epidemic in the United States. Why won’t Americans clamp down on firearms?
Again, the majority wants to. Despite the impression that Americans are all gun-toting vigilantes, six in 10 American adults live in households without firearms. Fifty percent of guns are owned by just 3% of the population. Strong majorities favour banning people with mental illness from purchasing guns, expanding background checks for gun sales, creating a federal ownership registry, and limiting assault-style weapons and ammunition magazines.
Inequality
The divide between the haves and have-nots has been growing in America for half a century. The tech revolution has minted billionaires many times over, while workers endure poverty wages. Forty percent of Americans have less than $400 available for emergency expenses. Their vulnerability was exposed acutely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why do Americans accept this entrenched inequality? They don’t — 61% of them want government policies and intervention to reverse the trend. Clear majorities support skills training programs, higher taxes on the wealthy, and free public college tuition to help redress the imbalance. Majorities also believe racial discrimination contributes to economic disadvantage in America.
Climate change
The United States has emitted more greenhouse gases in its history than any other country, and remains the world’s leading polluter on a per capita basis. As this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics confirmed, the impacts of greenhouse gases on global warming and climate change are irrefutable. The effects are already being felt, and without concrete action to limit future emissions, the consequences for our environment and the world economy will be profound.
Despite this evidence the Trump administration did the opposite of concrete action. It withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, scrubbed any reference to climate change within federal government agencies and scrapped regulations designed to curb fossil fuel consumption. Why would Americans endorse this?
They didn’t. Americans overwhelmingly approve of government initiatives to tackle climate change. They strongly back carbon taxes and credits, massive reforestation projects, restrictions on power plants and stricter fuel efficiency standards. Seventy nine percent believe the US should prioritise alternative energy sources. Americans want the federal government to do more to protect the environment and address climate change.
More progressive than you think
On closer inspection, the preferences and priorities of Americans contradict the impressions of many observers. Far from being hostile to proactive government, Americans want what other rich nations have — universal healthcare, quality affordable education, and well-paying jobs. Market capitalism with sensible rules to provide fair competition and limit harm. A level playing field for everyone to pursue their dreams.
Mainstream Americans are more progressive than conventional wisdom would have us believe. This fact lies at the heart of the existential struggle being waged in Washington right now. While most of the US media has missed this altogether, and remains fixated on reporting politics as a nonstop horse race rather than investigating policy substance.
The media falsely portrays “moderates” as neutral arbiters who share the middle ground with middle America while fending off partisan extremists on both sides. It has fallen for the right-wing framing of “progressive” as an insult, and parrot it without proper analysis. It’s the so-called moderates who are out of step with regular Americans.
President Joe Biden gets it. His Build Back Better agenda is laser-focused on delivering progress for Americans across all these issues. His plans have broad bipartisan support from voters, with 62% approval. Individual components receive 59% to 81% backing. Seventeen Nobel Prize-winning economists also hail his ambitions.
Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and his colleagues understand it too. That’s why they are fighting tooth and nail to derail Biden’s plans — they know their positions are opposed by a majority of Americans. If Biden succeeds and shows Americans what their government can actually do for them, it will break the spell that Republican politicians have been casting for decades.
Next: the political, institutional and corporate forces that have prevented Americans from having the government they actually want.
Thanks for that interesting article Keir. I look forward to reading Part 2.
I detect an underlying optimism in your writing that I only wish that I could say that I shared. I certainly do not want to contradict what you are saying as you obviously have much first-hand experience living in what I regard as a giant lunatic asylum. I have (thankfully) never even visited the place and I certainly do not want to go there. My ex-wife has been to America twice and never wants to return.
Anyway Keir, the main ‘take-home message’ for me form your article is that, while you quite rightly mention the significant problems and contradictions that are apparent in America under appropriate headings including Healthcare, Gun Control, Inequality and Climate Change, the manner in which Americans have handled these matters is nothing short of appalling. As you discuss the disasters apparent in each category you also try to reassure readers that the majority of Americans in each case are manifestly unhappy the status quo. Cleary Keir, this suggests to me that there is some inherent and manifest problem with American ‘democracy’. Something is wrong with America at its very core, if what you are saying is correct (and I do not for a minute suggest that you are not correct). The logical conclusion that one would draw as a result, is that American ‘democracy’ is not all that it makes itself out to be. In other words there is some fundamental flaw with American ‘democracy’.
I would just mention in passing that I have had a subscription to the Washington Post for the last 7 or 8 years or so and a cursory glance at many of the comments on the blog sites that accompany articles supports your contention that many Americans are very progressive and moderate in their views. Many of them have a great sense of humor also.
Americans claim that USA is not a democracy but a republic.
They can cite the authority of the Federalist Papers in support of that view, so it has a fairly solid base; Hamilton, Madison and Jay should know their subject.
Long suffering NYer reader here.
I sometimes wonder whether the Civil War really ended. I suggest reading ‘Confederate’s in the attic’.
Thanks for that suggestion, John.
I must also admit too John, that I wonder whether the civil war ended. America seems to be a House that is perpetually divided amongst itself. The specter of this sort of division even troubled Abraham Lincoln.
However the demarcation between the warring factions these days is not nearly as clear cut as what is was in the days of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Great article.
The misalignment between what people want and the governments that they vote for is down to the “Archiac electoral system” for voting in a President, who, in the US system, IS the executive. The US’s college voting system used to is so broken that a vote in a sparse state like Wyoming can have the same value as 4-5 votes in a far more populist state, such as California.
Such a violation of the “one person – one vote” would not be tolerated in most democracies.
The Senate in the US and here in Australia has the same issue with the tiny states having the same number of senators as the huge states. However, they were both set up as houses of review, so it wasnt a big deal. They are, however, far more that that these days, which means another distortion where a minority get to dictate tot he majority.
Of course, here in Australia, the Federal Nationals have been dictating our national Climate Change policy despite them only representing 6% of the population. Not a lo of “one person one vote” going on there either.
Funny how the beneficiaries of an undemocratic democracy always seem to favour the Right.
Or you could just distil this all to “Citizens United’ and so-called originalists on the Supreme Court.
A cynic reading de Tocqueville would say that he predicted C/U as the apotheosis of what he saw forming.
“This characterisation misses fundamental facts.”
I’m not convinced these facts, though true (up to a point), are so fundamental. They don’t change anything
“First, Trump did not receive a majority of votes cast in either of his presidential campaigns. He narrowly won the first time thanks to an archaic electoral system that tipped the scales his way.”
The “archaic” system did what it was designed to do. The US constitution was set up to prevent a popular majority of votes being the decisive factor. Anyone campaigning to be president takes account of this and campaigns not for the popular vote but for the electoral college vote. That’s how Trump won in 2016 and it seems quite weird to put him down because he played and won by the rules of the game (that time, not so much in 2020).
“Moreover his approval rating during his presidency never exceeded 50%, a first in presidential history. Trump, and what he represented, was opposed by a majority of Americans throughout his tenure.”
It’s also worth noting that while Trump did not get a majority of votes overall, he still got votes. If that’s an archaic system, what is the word for ours? Our head of state never got one vote, since the position is allocated by accident of birth. Our head of government is also not subject to any popular election, being chosen from among the representatives in the lower house of parliament, which means in practice the head of government is anyone who can find their way to be leader of the party with the biggest numbers in that chamber. Their level of popular support is never subject to any direct test, just opinion polls.
“Second, most Americans support similar government policies that citizens in other advanced nations enjoy. Americans would welcome greater investment in such programs, and the higher taxes required to pay for them.”
Having a government that shows little concern for implementing policies with popular support does not distinguish the USA from many other supposedly advanced democracies. It is clearly demonstrable that the parties that dopminate what is called representative democracy are far more responsive to a range of other interests than they ever are to the general public.
Can you imagine living in a country where 3/4s or the populace support action on climate change and yet the government of the day does everything in its power to support fossil fuel companies, and transitioning to gas 15 years too late. Crazy, heh!
A bit of look over there?
More like those in glass houses throwing stones.
And coal
10+
Sorry I disagree with some of your comments regarding Trump….”…he played by the rules and won in 2016..not so much 2020″…
Oh please! Are you kidding? He did everything in his power to ensure thousands of not millions, particularly in 2020 were legally unable to vote, particularly in States where Polling Booths were setup miles and miles from Native American homes, already struggling with the Covid crisis – and did everything he could to prevent Mail-in voting.
He’s STILL as reported yesterday in the New York Times and in today’s Guardian Australia, rallying his supporters to continue the LIE that he won the 2020 election.
I think Keir has done a fair job of reporting some truths about the misconceptions held by many, against the American people.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with a lot of what they do either, but it’s good to see some realities for a change.
The one thing that constantly shocks me with the USA is that they’re still fighting for more than US$12ph wages.
I can’t imagine anyone in Oz putting up with that wage for as long as they’ve done over there, without all-in chaos on the streets….yet the Republicans have once again stymied any attempts by Democrats to raise it to any kind of decent living wage.
We’ve got it pretty good out here in that respect- and with the benefit of endless Public holidays, often paid by the employer.
But hey, we are all entitled to our opinions, right?
Actually, maybe not for too much longer if our illustrious Federal government has anything to do with it.
Like I said, 2020 was different. The article, as I quoted so the context was clear, was suggesting there is something significant about the majority vote. But that’s not true. Trump did what every candidate does in the USA – he aimed for a majority in the electoral college, because the rules say that decides who wins. The majority popular vote changes nothing and it is a waste of campaign reslources to worry about it.
Still much prefer our system. Our Trump ( Palmer or Kelly) cannot get to be PM. Also a nation of 325 million can only come up with 2 old blokes, one a conman the other a 40 year veteran of corrupt Washington politics.
Don’t be too complacent – a party with a primary vote of 32% and just over a hundred parliamentarians gave us the Abbottrocity, Talcum & Scummo.
Meanwhile Fraudy & the Gestapotato lurk in the wings, awaiting the call.
Good article. The States also have a Bill of Rights. As an aside, another all-encompassing insult is ‘elite’.