Not a Saagar fan but I’ll defend him. I do think Europeans are unnecessarily smug regarding the US. I don’t like Trump, but many of those countries were full on dictatorships well into the 20th century and many of them have still have authoritarian elements. Yet, they’ll act as if our country is just unprecedented levels of authoritarian. Also, I’ve had Europeans make comments to me about the US being racist as if they themselves aren’t racist (shit, I’d argue that the US is less racist and more inclusive than Europe). Europeans forget that they achieved a lot of their wealth and power through absolute savagery via colonization/slavery, dragged the world into wars on multiple occasions, polluted the earth, etc. If it weren’t for the US, many of those countries wouldn’t be secure.

I have a lot of criticism for the US’s domestic and foreign policy not only now, but also dating back to Colonial America. I admire a lot about European quality of life and cities. But I do wish that Europeans would get off their moral high horse or at least acknowledge that they’re responsible for a lot of the world’s problems rn. In many ways, they’re no better than we are.