American here who fully disagrees, particularly on the first part. Even in today's craziness worldwide it's clear the US has fucked up worse than many other countries.

I'm not going to live and die on external opinions but calling it irrelevant simply isn't accurate. In fact, I hope that the global protests may actually help change things for the better here. The sad thing is that it appears current politicians don't care about the world standing of the US, and that could get dangerous.

You as an individual might not care what the rest of the world thinks but it matters to America as whole what the rest of the world thinks. There are genuine effects economically, culturally and militarily that reaches every US citizen in some form or the other. Unless you retreat into some form of isolationism so severe it is without historical precedent then you will care.

You missed my point entirely. It doesn't matter whether you think you care. Pride, chest-puffing and posturing don't matter either.

The outside world has a habit of affecting things whether you pay attention to them or not.

You're missing the bigger picture.

A non-US citizen expressing critism of America does not automatically mean that they're laughing at you or your country. This isn't a competition or a school playground.

Set your pride and nationalism to the side for just a second and consider that these critisms could have been born from a genuine issue, and not fabricated/exaggerated by "European media"

Every time I check out BBC, DW, France 24, or any other European world news service, America is almost always first to be discussed. What Trump says, shootings, demonstrations, etc. It's all domestic affairs, but covered as though it's world news. Why would someone in Bavaria care so much about a shooting in Flint, Michigan? What about shootings in other countries? The horrors in Africa? Barely covered. No one cares.

So that's why this is not criticism, but some kind of competitive snickering. Europeans seem to need to feel better about themselves when comparing about Americans. Americans, on the other hand, rightfully don't care about what goes on overall in Europe.

I watch the news in the UK nearly every day and what you say is just not true. I suspect you're viewing the international versions of those channels rather than the domestic ones.

> From the inside, the rest of the world looks like either anarchy or arbitrary despotism.

I don't even live in any of these countries but... Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, etc.?

Is this a time-traveling commentary from 1776? :-D

What's your point? They're expressing an opinion. Your response comes across as defensive, and dare I say irrationally so.

If the only source of information is Breitbart and Fox News,then yes,sure,the rest of the world is still Soviet Union. Individually it doesn't matter,but collectively it does.Look at Africa,as an example: Americans lost any credibility they had left and Chinese took over with ease. The Economist is peppered with cases, where the locals point blank refuse to deal with anyone from the states. The more of Trump the rest of the world sees the more they think the country is going nuts and etc. The current events puts US on the same level with Russia: corrupt, power hungry policemen being supported all the way to the top of the government.