[beaner]

I feel like I might get downvoted for this, but a large part of it comes from a sense of guilt about clearly being the most successful and powerful country in the world. When nearly everyone else on earth constantly gives you shit (while also trying to enter...) many people here have started accepting those foreign perspectives and seeing themselves as spoiled and privileged. I can remember this being true from when I was a child. It has been happening for a long time. Complacent adults have never stood up and tried to set things straight.

Many Americans don't want to seem naive about how good they have it, so they overcompensate by disliking the country instead.

It doesn't help that being successful has made life incredibly easy for a significant fraction of people, who find fulfillment in social justice rather than family and work, because they aren't as necessary anymore. Social justice as a way of living tends to correlate with self hatred, which extends to the country.

There are other factors of course, but these ones are large.

[microtonal]

about clearly being the most successful and powerful country in the world

And this to the rest of the world is typical America arrogance. I am sorry to be blunt, but I have to call it out.

I won't debate that the US is the most powerful country in the world. But 'most successful' is very debatable. I have been in the US often, and found that most Americans are far less well off than in other Western democracies. Most Americans have very few vacation days, poor healthcare, and are in a spot where losing their job means a large probability of falling into poverty. Plus your political system (democrat or republican) completely fails to serve most citizens.

To add to the offense, the nationalism instilled in many Americans makes it so that they believe that these are not failings of the system. After all, everyone can live the American dream, and if you do not make it, it is your own responsibility rather than that of the system that puts most people at a large disadvantage.

I would never even consider moving from Nothern/Western Europe to the US. Canada, maybe. Australia, New Zealand, possibly. But never the US.

[beaner]

I don't know that it's possible to debate without going down very large, very opinionated rabbit holes. You're very clearly wrong on a number of things, I'm sorry. But it should suffice to quantify it with numbers and trends. Namely that Americans don't leave America for quality of life reasons; millions of foreign immigrants want to and attempt to and many succeed illegally; immigrants try from all over the world, not just its direct southern neighbor, despite the US's relative distance from the rest of the world; even Americans who claim to hate the country never leave.

I understand your perspective and think it's fair. When it comes to people voting with their feet however, you do not represent the reality for most people.

Edit: Additionally, "Western Europeans move to the US in far greater numbers — both proportionally and in absolute terms — than Americans move to Western Europe." [0]

[0] https://mises.org/wire/3-times-many-europeans-move-us-other-...

[nec4b]

And the majority of world voting with its feet does not agree with you.

[hef19898]

There is a huge difference between seeing and accepting the bad things, past and present, and hating ones own country. A lot of people I know, that share your opinion, seem to overcompensate for all the bad things. They try to ignore them, and everyone pointing these bad things out has automatically fail to see the good things, thus hating ones country. This is a very slippery slope.