People worldwide see the true American heart.
I don’t think people are seeing the true American heart. I think Americans are seeing the truth in their neighbors’ hearts, though. We’ve been in denial about who we are and our responsibility to the world, because we trusted that our core values (freedom, equality, justice) would endure through scandals and fraudsters and would-be tyrants. Americans were lulled to sleep by casual prosperity and nominal world-leadership. We believed that the critics of America “hate freedom” or were jealous of our well-deserved success. Trump is the inexorable conclusion of that laziness, the funhouse mirror reflection of our own indifference to the world.
I believe most people, anywhere, are good people and want to be good people. The differences arise from defining what is “good” but largely we all want freedom, justice, and equality for ourselves. Extending that to others is a question of empathy, and empathy is created by exposure. America’s heart is our diversity, our multiculturalism, and we let that heart become overrun with bigots and tyrants.
That’s what the world is seeing, and has seen for 100 years. Bigots and tyrants, claiming moral superiority. It is the Americans who are just now seeing it for the first time.
because we trusted that our core values (freedom, equality, justice)
Are those really American’s core values? It sure hasn’t appeared that way from the outside, and that’s not a new thing.
That’s what we are led to believe as children, and it’s the principles we talk about when we want to foster civic pride.
But do we practice those values? Do we base all of our actions as a government, as a nation, as a community, on those principles? No, we don’t, but most of us Americans are just finding that out.
