I’m not gonna lie, as a Brazilian, i never feel the same pull as my gringo acquaintances do to dedicate time to speak about US concerns. The world is not just Trump, Biden, Joe Rogan and Hulk Hogan - there is a vast world out there with tremendous concerns. I appreciate anyone from another country who dares to peek beyond their borders out of their own curiosity to learn. And while some may end uo concluding things are hopeless after seeing the scale of global suffering and the magnitude of what is necessary to “Fix the World”, you will always find people asking the same questions as you in another country, no matter how much your government may insist that foreigners are impossible to understand.
US politics, to me, always felt like a never-ending circus act to distract the population from more pressing social, economic and political matters both at home and abroad. “Foreign policy” ranks very low among most Americans’ concerns, but that is for a reason - such matter, like so many domestic ones, is not in their hands but rather in those of a self-interested, self-selecting clique of rich assholes. The same is true of many countries as well, but the US’ case seems compounded by its lack of any geographically close threats.
On that topic, i get a creeping sensation on my back whenever Trump or someone influential suggests invading and occupying Mexico to “root out the cartels” (as if they are gangs of random murderers completely unrelated to the US gun and drug market), or whenever an US military head honcho speaks in fatalistic terms about what “they’re gonna have to do” about China and its intentions, real or alleged, towards what they consider to be America’s turf. I believe most Americans are up for a rude awakening in the coming few years about the gravity of their country’s challenges over global dominance and what their government (read: ruling class) will demand of them to maintain it.
To most gringos, life in the US makes it feel like a country coasting on in an enclosed vaccuum, but to the rest of the world, the US is a tremendous force upon whose will the fate of millions rests. Whether this state of affairs should even continue to exist has never been, and will never be, on the ballot in an American election.
