For many Americans, the assumption that they live in the strongest, richest and most advanced society on earth is closer to certainty, but the hard truth is that America is a country at the top center or bottom of the rich group.

In an article by Paul Masgrave and published in Foreign Policy, a 2017 Pew Research Center survey showed that most Americans disagree only if their country is the best country in the world or one of the best, and few agree with other better countries. .

Masgrave said political elites also bear this illusion. If we turn a blind eye to President Donald Trump's opinion, even the highly objective former President Barack Obama says that his country has the best advantages compared to any country in the world.

Learning from others
America is indeed the best in military power and GDP, but it is hard to prove that it is the first in everything. The rest of the world is developing and adopting policies that can make everyday life in the United States, with the exception of some coastal areas, seem backward.

The reluctance of the United States, says Masgrave, or its inability to learn from other countries, makes life for its citizens worse than it should be, not only on big issues such as health care and student debt, but even on small issues of everyday life.

He stressed that quality of life indicators show that the United States ranks low. In the United Nations Human Development Index, which not only calculates economic performance, but also life expectancy and education, the United States ranks 13th behind other industrial democracies such as Australia, Germany and Canada, 45th in infant mortality, and 46th in Maternal mortality, 36 in life expectancy.

A poor Indiana man collects empty cans to sell (French)

Relatively low freedoms
In the Freedom Index, RSF ranks the United States 48th to protect press freedom. Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the United States as the 22nd least corrupt country in the world, after Canada, Germany and France.

Freedom House experts rank the US 33rd in terms of political freedom, while the Democracy Project raises the quality of democracy in the US to 27th. For happiness, the Global Happiness Report ranks America 19th, just after Belgium.

Many people in the world disagree with the Americans on the illusion that their country is the best, Masgrave said, adding that he had asked those who spent time in the United States and other countries to tell him about the daily aspects where they found the United States to be less advanced than other countries. More than 2000 replies per day.

Mono-language and stubborn
Opinions in most of these responses, as the author described them, were surprising at how bad many aspects of American life are.

Estonian former President Thomas Hendrik Elvis summarized the situation well: bad roads, maternity and paternity leave are short, as well as education up to grade 12, and most Americans are monolithic and stubborn.

Many commentators have raised daily shortcomings in American life, such as transport infrastructure dismal and seemingly on the verge of collapse, inadequate sidewalks, poor public transportation systems, and few public toilets.