{"id":1571,"date":"2020-09-26T21:12:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T21:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=1571"},"modified":"2020-09-26T21:12:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T21:12:36","slug":"i-feel-sorry-for-americans-a-baffled-world-watches-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=1571","title":{"rendered":"‘I Feel Sorry for Americans’: A Baffled World Watches the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

by Hannah Beech<\/a><\/p>\n

From Myanmar to Canada, people are asking: How did a superpower allow itself to be felled by a virus? And why won\u2019t the president commit to a peaceful transition of power?<\/i><\/b>\"myanmar.jpg\"Although Myanmar is beset with its own coronavirus outbreak, there is a sense of sympathy for the United States.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

BANGKOK \u2014 Myanmar is a poor country struggling with open ethnic warfare and a coronavirus outbreak that could overload its broken hospitals. That hasn\u2019t stopped its politicians from commiserating with a country they think has lost its way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel sorry for Americans,\u201d said Myint Oo, a member of Parliament in Myanmar. \u201cBut we can\u2019t help the U.S. because we are a very small country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same sentiment prevails in Canada, one of the most developed countries. Two out of three Canadians live within about 60 miles of the U.S. border.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, it\u2019s like watching the decline of the Roman Empire,\u201d said Mike Bradley, the mayor of Sarnia, an industrial city on the border with Michigan, where locals used to venture for lunch.<\/p>\n

Amid the pandemic and in the run-up to the presidential election, much of the world is watching the United States with a mix of shock, chagrin and, most of all, bafflement.<\/p>\n

How did a superpower allow itself to be felled by a virus? And after nearly four years during which President Donald Trump has praised authoritarian leaders and obscenely dismissed some other countries as insignificant and crime-ridden, is the United States in danger of exhibiting some of the same traits he has disparaged?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe USA is a first-world country, but it is acting like a third-world country,\u201d said Aung Thu Nyein, a political analyst in Myanmar.<\/p>\n

Adding to the sense of bewilderment, Trump has refused to embrace an indispensable principle of democracy, dodging questions about whether he will commit to a peaceful transition of power after the November election should he lose.<\/p>\n

His demurral, combined with his frequent attacks on the balloting process, earned a rebuke from Republicans, including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. \u201cFundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power,\u201d Romney wrote on Twitter. \u201cWithout that, there is Belarus.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Belarus, where tens of thousands of people have faced down police after the widely disputed reelection last month of President Alexander Lukashenko, Trump\u2019s remarks sounded familiar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminds me of Belarus, when a person cannot admit defeat and looks for any means to prove that he couldn\u2019t lose,\u201d said Kiryl Kalbasnikau, a 29-year-old opposition activist and actor. \u201cThis would be a warning sign for any democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some others in Europe are confident that U.S. institutions are strong enough to withstand assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no doubt in the ability of the constitutional structures of the United States with their system of checks and balances to function,\u201d said Johann Wadephul of Germany, a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s conservatives.<\/p>\n

Still, that the president of the United States, the very country that shepherded the birth of Germany\u2019s own peaceful democracy after the defeat of the Third Reich, was wavering on the sanctity of the electoral process has been met with disbelief and dismay.<\/p>\n

The diminution of the United States\u2019 global image began before the pandemic, as Trump administration officials snubbed international accords and embraced an America First policy. Now, though, its reputation seems to be in free fall.<\/p>\n

A Pew Research Center poll of 13 countries found that over the past year, nations including Canada, Japan, Australia and Germany have been viewing the United States in its most negative light in years. In every country surveyed, the vast majority of respondents thought the United States was doing a bad job with the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Such global disapproval historically has applied to countries with less open political systems and strongmen in charge. But people from just the kind of developing countries that Trump has mocked say the signs coming from the United States are ominous: a disease unchecked, mass protests over racial and social inequality, and a president who seems unwilling to pledge support for the tenets of electoral democracy.<\/p>\n

Mexico, perhaps more than any other country, has been the target of Trump\u2019s ire, with the president using it as a campaign punching bag and vowing to make Mexicans pay for a border wall. Now they are feeling a new emotion that has overtaken their anger and bewilderment at Trumpian insults: sympathy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to look to the U.S. for democratic governance inspiration,\u201d said Eduardo Boh\u00f3rquez, director of Transparency International Mexico. \u201cSadly, this is not the case anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Being great\u2019 is simply not enough,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority democracy, there is a sense that the United States has left the world adrift, even if its application overseas of democratic ideals was imperfect. For decades, Washington supported some of Asia\u2019s most ruthless dictators because they were considered vital to halting communism in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world sees the dismantling of social cohesion within American society and the mess in managing COVID,\u201d said Yenny Wahid, an Indonesian politician and activist. \u201cThere is a vacuum of leadership that needs to be filled, but America is not fulfilling that leadership role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wahid, whose father was president of Indonesia after the country emerged from decades of strongman rule, said she worried that Trump\u2019s dismissive attitude toward democratic principles could legitimize authoritarians.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump inspired many dictators, many leaders who are interested in dictatorship, to copy his style, and he emboldened them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In places like the Philippines, Mexico and others, elected leaders have been compared to Trump when they have turned to divisive rhetoric, disregard of institutions, intolerance of dissent and antipathy toward the media.<\/p>\n

But there is also a sense that Americans are now getting a glimpse of the troubles people living in fragile democracies must endure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey now know what it\u2019s like in other countries: violating norms, international trade and its own institutions,\u201d said Eunice Rendon, an expert on migration and security and the director of Migrant Agenda, a nonprofit organization in Mexico. \u201cThe most powerful country in the world all of a sudden looks vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already, a U.S. passport, which once allowed easy access to almost every country in the world, is no longer a valuable travel pass. Because of the coronavirus, American tourists are banned from most of Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America.<\/p>\n

Albania, Brazil and Belarus are among a small group of countries welcoming Americans with no restrictions, however.<\/p>\n

The State Department has tried to play up its role in battling the coronavirus overseas, even as the United States struggled to supply its own doctors and nurses with adequate equipment early in the pandemic. In March, the United States provided 10,000 gloves and 5,000 surgical masks, among other medical supplies, to Thailand, which today has recorded fewer than 3,520 coronavirus cases and 59 deaths. Despite the low caseload, most Thais continue to wear face masks in public, and the country never suffered a mask shortage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the American people\u2019s generosity and the U.S. government\u2019s action, the United States continues to demonstrate global leadership in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic,\u201d a State Department statement said.<\/p>\n

In Cambodia, which reports being largely spared by the virus so far, there is a measure of schadenfreude toward the United States. Prime Minister Hun Sen has survived as Asia\u2019s longest-serving leader by cracking down on dissent and cozying up to China. He has turned his back on U.S. aid because it often came with conditions to improve human rights. Now he and his administration are ridiculing the United States and its handling of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has many nuclear weapons,\u201d Sok Eysan, a spokesperson for Hun Sen\u2019s Cambodian People\u2019s Party, said of Trump. \u201cBut he is careless with a disease that can\u2019t be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Hannah Beech From Myanmar to Canada, people are asking: How did a superpower allow itself to be felled by a virus? And why won\u2019t the president commit to a peaceful transition of power?Although Myanmar is beset with its own coronavirus outbreak, there is a sense of sympathy for the United States. BANGKOK \u2014 Myanmar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1572,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions\/1572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}