The world has long known that despite its endless boasting, America is not - and likely has never been - the greatest country on earth. Now, America is being confronted with that reality in the most brutally truthful of ways.
It's been convenient for many to see Trump as an anachronism; an utterly atypical American President. This is true to some extent, but it's a falsehood to a far larger, much more insidious and much more revealing extent. Trump may not look or sound like an American President, but he is as true an unvarnished representation of America - as embodied by its leader - as one can imagine. The Emperor without his clothes, hideous in his nakedness.
Trump is a bloviating, ignorant, self-serving, merciless, empathy-deficient, weight-hurling, threat-lobbing, back-stabbing liar. This is EXACTLY how America has treated the world for well over a century. Through its belligerent, short-sighted foreign policies, it has wrecked country after country. Through the cruel abomination of slavery, it turned itself into an economic and military power, whilst boasting of its egalitarian dream and endless ingenuity.
But it doesn't stop there. Through selling the snake-oil of race-baiting fears, socialist-conspiracies and corporate-centric economics to its citizens, it has created one of the most profoundly divided citizenries on the planet. The country's name is the bitterest of ironies. This is a country that could scarcely be more divided if it was strewn about the galaxy. Which of course, it dreams of being.
America is a not a brave country. It out-muscles its smaller enemies, and its citizens live in fear of each other. It is a nation that sees wealth as the only true measure of human worth. It allows powerfully self-interested groups that stoke fear and exploit weakness to govern its political realities. Its education system is so broken, that in some parts of the country, creationism has replaced science.
Neither is it a free country. Per capita, it has more incarcerated citizens (in its predominantly privately owned and run prisons) than every single country on earth. And its health-system is pathetic. A tragic mess. Right now, the world is looking on grimly at just how deadly such a basic failing (arguably a moral failing) can be.
America is digging mass graves. America.
America does not protect its citizens. It never has. It protects its interests, which, in a country so hegemonically distorted, means protecting the interests of the very, very few. The majority of those who are dying are poor. Many are black. It is surely only matter of time until Trump blames these people for their own demise, arguing that if they'd worked harder and kept themselves in better shape, they wouldn't have been in any danger. After all, he's already tried to blame the World Health Organisation. It's about as sane an argument as blaming an oil spill on the first duck who found himself blackened and who then tried to warn the others.
Instead of leadership, we get the 'Chinese' virus. Wow. China is helping other nations far, far more than others. They are giving away medical supplies. America, for all its fatuous egotism, cannot even help itself. It is, for all the world to see, the very definition of a failed state.
That said being said, China are hardly the heroes of the hour. The unchecked barbarism of their wet markets are highly likely to have been the origin-point of this pandemic and other recent pandemic threats, and let’s not get started on their human rights violations. They are hardly the ideal model of a nation.
What’s happening in America right now is truly horrible to see. Because real people, innocent people, are dying at an unimaginable rate. The fate of any nation - deserved or not - must not be considered in isolation from the price paid for such malevolent hubris. America's demise could cost the lives of millions.
It's hard to see how any President could fix up this mess. Those who tout the egalitarian dreams of Bernie Sanders as the solution are grossly underestimating the intractability of the problem. This is a country that stocks up on guns if there's an above-average amount of cockroaches in the vicinity.
I am deeply sceptical that this health catastrophe will do anything more than make America lash about like a cornered cat. Like Trump, it will blame anyone and anything before it summons the level of courage needed to look itself in the eye.
What can we do?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Well, one thing. Be grateful that we are not America. For all our faults, all our frustrations at our media, our politicians, the loons who walk among us, we are lightyears better than America.
And we must work hard to remain that way. We cannot allow ourselves to be dictated by fear. Ever. That is the beginning of the end for nations, for societies, for individuals.
We must hold our politicians to account by calling out their lies.
We must turn away from media that is little more than corporatised sensationalism, in order to then demand better.
And we must listen to each other. Especially to those with whom we disagree. We must shatter tribalism and partisan entrenchments. This is what lead America into its bottomless pit. We must not let that happen to us.
My thoughts and prayers go out those who've been failed by their nation states. I hope that the compassion, kindness and selflessness possessed in spades by so many individual Americans - and many around the world - provide nourishment and hope for all those now dependent on others for their survival.
And I hope we never lose sight of each other. For it is when we can no longer see, that we no longer know who we are.
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