I mean, the sitting President was shilling cars on the White House lawn and runs an active meme coin bribery slush fund.

This is not slightly behind Western Europe. This is miles behind any developed country. China may be corrupt, but Xi Jinping hasn’t yet sold beans or cars via press conference.

The rule of law gets down to nitty-gritty levels, too, not just a reality show at the highest altitudes: trust the police don't extort you, the ability to gain relief in court (small claims or civil), trust things you build won't be looted overnight, trust in your neighborhood to walk at night or leave something unlocked, trust in your bank to wire things, trust in your title companies, trust in your package deliveries, etc.

It's not perfect, but you could do so, so much worse.

"Could be much worse" is a platitude not an argument. "It is improving" might be, if it were true.

I often couch my arguments in soft language like a conversation would be in order to have a discussion. The idea that the US is miles behind developed nations is nonsense.

Depends. Would you still insist it's nonsense if any of these things you mentioned happened to you or your family?

Why are these alternatives? I believe it is true that the situation in the US is better than many other countries (not most), and also that "almost no corruption" is false.

Being better than others really isn't the only thing that matters.

If you pursue excellence, you compare yourself against the best, not the worst.

Then the russian fellow shouldn't have dared to compare USA to his country?