At Needless Wars, Weapons Exports, and Threatening Annihilation
OCT 01, 2026
Americans like to think we live in the best country in the world. It’s part of our culture, almost the air that we breathe. Perhaps it’s even in our DNA. We’re told from birth how lucky we are to be American. We’re so much better than everyone else that “they hate us because they ain’t us.”
It’s American mythology, of course, and it’s something I was reminded of as I saw this chart (below) this morning on Twitter/X:
Grim chart. I’m surprised that the chart didn’t include that America is indeed #1 at needless wars, colossal military spending, weapons exports, and militarized pageantry that extols the wonders of being an American as various combat jets roar overhead. We’re also #1 at the size of our national debt, now exceeding $40 trillion and rising.
The chart above suggests how America could close the gap by making health care better and more affordable, by improving education, by enhancing the quality of living for all, and so on, but politicians rarely address such issues. The political ads I’ve seen during this electoral season focus on which candidate is more corrupt or which candidate wants to raise your taxes or which candidate can lower the price of gasoline.
George Carlin famously said that you had to be asleep (or perhaps very rich) to believe in the “American dream,” but it seems today that the aspirational dream of a better, more enlightened, more democratic country is dead. The only people dreaming big are people like Trump, he of triumphant arches loaded with snipers and drones, of ballrooms with underground bunkers, of a new “Club Med” in Gaza once the Palestinians there are murdered or starved or forced out.
And maybe that’s a big legacy of MAGA: the death of the American dream, strangled by wars and militarism and corruption. Along with the redefinition of “greatness,” which is now defined by “warriors” kicking people when they’re down and threatening entire civilizations with annihilation.
