When I was growing up in the eighties in The Netherlands, the US as it was thought to us in class and as we experienced it through its strong cultural influence, was certainly something to aspire to.

Of course, back then there was an obvious common enemy to point at, and the help the US provided to our country during and after WWII was still kind of fresh in the collective memory.

It happened around the time when people thought having one dude called a king telling everyone else what to do was a pretty efficient way to run things fairly. Unfortunately, the "enlightenment" never seemed to progress past a small group of landed oligarchs telling everyone else what to do because they were obviously so much smarter and better, we're certain, after all they had all the stuff.

Personally, I tend to point to net immigration numbers when someone raises the question.

The millions of people who left their countries to come here.