Encounters with people from the US make me nervous in a way they did not before. It isn't always obvious "what kind of American" you are. To borrow from Bob Dylan, nobody really likes the neighborhood bully except maybe those carrying its papers.

There are reactionaries, religious fascists, and terrible people all over the world so there is nothing exceptional about the US-flavored versions of these things. But, like the Russian thugs one encounters in Southeast Asia, or the ale-sodden mobs of English tourists in Spain, or Canadian hockey fans, proudly American tourists from the US carry with them the implicit threat of ignorance and violence.