1. Oh, and one more thing I really have to say: the media reporting on yesterday’s riots kept comparing them to “what happens to third world countries far away.” That’s sheer ignorance, and a huge insult to third world countries.

2. Few third world countries poor because they’re under anti-intellectual mob rule. Many are poor because, in fact, the global economic system, led especially by the US, exploits them for their natural resources while depressing their returns to capital investment.

3. Few are as governed as poorly as the US has been these four years, because they can’t afford to be. And that’s American exceptionalism: to be so economically well endowed that you can sometimes afford to completely screw up your governance and not pay too high a price for it.