I’d like to offer a comparison

This is based on my observation only, but I’ve noticed a difference between the style of news reporting in the UK and the US, and it might explain why America thinks it’s not so great and needs Trump.

In the UK the BBC, in particular, is very fond of comparative reporting.  Headlines are made when reports comparing EU countries, or global statistics, are released.  For instance ‘Brits are more obese than the French’ or ‘The Scots are in more personal debt than the Germans’ are commonly seen (by the way I’ve no idea if these are true, I’ve just made them up for illustration).   The result is that we Brits are pretty clear about where we stand in the world, what we’re good at (healthcare) and what we’re bad at (obesity, say).

In the US however, this style of reporting seems nonexistent.  There are no headlines about how the US compares to different countries; most Americans I’ve met seem to think every country has a gun problem! Perhaps more peculiarly, headlines aren’t made either about how different states compare to each other.

Could this go some way to explain why America doesn’t think it’s so great when actually it is (except for guns and healthcare, obesity, oops there’s more than I thought) and hence why Trump makes such traction with his promise to ‘Make America great again’.  America is actually great in many ways.  What precisely is Trump on about?  And what do Americans feel they’re not great at?