America being largest producer of ‘culture’ and having such a large geopolitical influence means that lots of countries compares itself to it. Because of its cultural hegemony most people know what’s broadly going on in the US, this means that any criticism of your country is dismissed or lessened by ‘at least we’re not America lol’.

I live in Australia, if you discuss adding dental or mental health to Medicare for example, people will inevitably say ‘at least we aren’t America’.

In the Queensland election news coverage on the ABC tonight, the analyst mentioned how great it is that the election results are accepted and it’s it’s just another day in democracy, as opposed to the US where everyone is prepared for the election to be contested and there’s voter suppression. While this IS true, and I do appreciate living in a semi-social liberal democracy that functions closer to intended, this detracts from the issues we have, discourages improvement and makes people feel complacent and smug.

Thoughts?

EDIT: the police is a good example too, if you critique the police you’ll often get a response like:

‘come on mate, our police aren’t that bad, not like in America where they shoot every black person they see, and sometimes even non black people(!) just for the heck of it, and they get of scott free, shits fucked there mate we got it pretty good aye. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE.’