I've decided to translate this article during my lunch break because it's a perfect glimpse into how other countries see the US now after a Trump presidency. Buckle up! https://twitter.com/AskAKorean/status/1325816435688566784

Nov. 4, 2008. 15 minutes after CNN released its exit polls, Republican candidate John McCain made his concession speech. Announcing that the US would never hide from history, McCain said he’d do everything in his power to help “my president.” Fast forward 10 years.

Fast forward 10 years. Donald Trump is tweeting “71,000,000 Legal Votes. The most EVER for a sitting President!” while ignoring reality. Some of his followers are taking to the streets with guns.

When I was living in the US a few years ago, my wallet was stolen and I lost my license. I went to the Bergen County DMV, where my license was issued. However, they told me that my license records had disappeared due to an electronic data processing error.

They neither knew what caused the issue nor did they show any accountability. Hundreds of people who had lost their license like I had were lined outside the door, yet nobody gave us a responsible answer.

It took me three months to get my new license. During that time period, I received a ticket from the New Jersey police for not carrying a license. When I complained, the police kindly responded that I should take it to court.

That fall, I was also hit by a tornado. Several trees near me fell, which shut down the road in front of my house (public transportation is a mess, so kids can’t go to school without a car)It took more than a month to remove the trees. What would have happened if this were Korea?

The US is still a superpower. It created the internet, invented smartphones and developed most of these smartphones’ operating systems. American culture has dominated our daily lives through pop songs and movies.

We watch Netflix, and drink coffee at Starbuck (Koreans spend about $1.3 trillion at Starbucks a year). The US dominates the electric car market and will finally begin testing level 4 autonomous cars on the road. And it’s overwhelmingly the largest weapons exporter in the world.

But is the US actually a number one country?

It can’t even manage a presidential election, the largest event in the country. Yet again they need the help of the police. And if things get out of control, they aim at citizens. It’s like Zimbabwe. The president denies the election results, and social trust is at a rock bottom.

The executive branch can’t even determine a standard postmark deadline and awaits the decision of the Supreme Court. Its fake news is fueled by its illiteracy rate, which is far higher than Korea’s. The instability of the system is threatening American democracy.

1/3 of the country doesn’t have proper healthcare. Its crumbling under an unknown virus. A country with the best financial system can’t even properly produce testing kits and protective suits, let alone masks. Overwhelmed with patients, it had to import ventilators from Russia.

Even checking into a hospital is difficult. And to be clear, people don’t want to be checked in. On average, Covid patients over the age of 60 who stayed in hospitals paid $6,1912 (based on FAIR Health database). Is the US really a number one country?

A facility that exercised dogs in my US neighborhood charged 15 dollars an hour. Yet the Hispanic workers who took care of those dogs made less than that.

The cost of a dog’s hour is higher than a human’s. It’s almost surprising that organ trade isn’t legal (Selling blood is legal in the US. Many states pay donors $50 via a cash card).

Tesla’s stock is falling sharply, but its CEO Elon Musk still boasts a fortune of $91.9 billion. A person would have to win a $900,000 lottery every week from 1996 to make $91.9 billion.

Yet another side of America is bleeding. In a documentary, I witnessed a black couple selling blood together. Is the US really a number one country?

The US is a country made by immigrants. How could people of different ethnicities and languages come together as one? In the 80s and 90s, you could easily find houses displaying an American flag year round.

When I first traveled to the US for a business trip, I saw a large monitor displaying a Navy recruitment ad. A few Americans around me stood up or took of their hats to show their respect toward the flag.

That patriotism, coupled with the "American Frontier", made America great. It became a melting pot of ethnicities. Countless leaders prioritized policies that created a “unified America.”

(TR was the first president to invite a Black man to the White House and was criticized by the conservative media. Decades after, no president dined with a Black man. John McCain, who lost to a Black man, would mention this a century later to illustrate US's improvement.)

The current US president, however, coaxes division and hate. He hates immigrants in a country made by them (and his wife Melania Trump is an immigrant from Slovenia as well). He encouraged armed supporters that threatened his opponent’s bus.

A militia group Trump was sympathetic to plotted the kidnapping of a Democratic governor. This isn’t the story of Brazil or South Sudan.

At one point, all White House officials on TV became white and blonde. It’s like a highteen drama. It shows a dangerous level of racial purity. It resembles Hitler, who believed that pure bloods were superior(even his dog had to an “original german shepard").

(pt 2 next thread)

Evangelicals are circling the White House. If American churches view Muslims as “someone wrong” instead of “someone different,” humanity may return to the 11th century. Back then, people went to war for 300 years to kill another religion.

Think about it. What does the US have without diversity?

Conflicts outside the country continue to grow as well. The US was like the big brother that kept order in the world. It wasn’t a thug. That order has benefited everyone for the past 100 years.

Over the thousands of years of humanity’s existence, the past 100 years have been the only period with consistent growth. And the great US stood at the world’s center.

The UK may have developed the steam engine, but it was the US that put the Model T (Ford) on the market in 1908. Automobiles dominated the markets, radios became widespread and air travel launched off. The US started this all.

And it was the US that saved Europe from Hitler in 1944. The US became the country of leaders, and dollars became the currency of the world.

The US’s trade deficit was tolerated to keep dollars circulating, helping countries like Japan, Korea and China get rich. It opened an era of free trade and multilateral trade, and thus the US became the world’s largest trade deficit country.

This helped settle freedom and competition as a global rule.

Yet this president fully rejects this order. There are no alliances under “America First!” If the strongest team packs up and leaves, the league will end up perishing. Everyone is left on their own.

Even the UK is leaving the EU. The WTO, WHO, UNHRC, Paris Climate Accord and even UNESCO is under risk. They all represent values we had once cherished.

Voltaire once described the Holy Roman Empire as “neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.” The current US, too, is “neither Holy, nor American-like, nor even America at all.” I’m curious. Will America ever be great again? (END)

tl;dr

How can the US be #1 if its leader rejected proper healthcare, global alliances and any form of diversity? - from a Korean reporter who once lived in the US

Also full disclaimer, it has been a while since the last time i broke out my translation skills