The Brain Rot of "America Bad, So Everybody Else Good"
Just because a country isn't on good terms with America, that doesn't mean they are the good guys.
Remember this post I wrote a while back?
The Expat Escape Route: What These “Best Places to Move” Guides Aren’t Telling You
So, here we are. The 2024 election came and went, and once again, Donald Trump came out on top.
In it, I made the point that just because a country isn’t the United States doesn’t automatically mean it’s some utopia for freedom, free from the restrictive, regressive, and patriarchal laws creeping further into American life.
Sadly, that kind of brain rot—where nuance dies in the face of binary thinking—is spreading. So today, I want to tackle this flawed notion:
America Bad ≠ Everyone Else Good, ESPECIALLY Anyone America Says Is Bad
Let’s start with something that doesn’t directly involve America: “Operation INFEKTION” —or, if you want the less dramatic but probably more accurate name, Operation Denver.
Back in the 1980s, this Soviet propaganda campaign spread the blatantly false claim that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS as part of a biological weapons project.
If your instinct here is to say, “Well, maaaaybe,” I’m going to save you some time—this article isn’t for you. You’re probably not going to like what’s coming next.
For those of you who prefer facts and science over Cold War conspiracy theories, let’s continue. Operation Denver was propaganda. We know it was fake. We know the Soviets lied. And yet, over 40 years later, the conspiracy still lingers in certain corners of the internet like an uninvited guest who refuses to leave.
So why am I bringing this up? Because while this was a clear case of fabricated propaganda, not all Soviet campaigns were entirely fictional. Take their decades-long effort to highlight racism in the United States, for example.
The Soviet’s, for many years, capitalized (pun intended) on the issues of racism in the United States.
Now, I won’t dive into the complex historical context of Soviet propaganda here—that’s a whole other article. But the Soviets had a field day pointing out America’s racial inequalities as a way to prop up their own image.
Here’s the kicker: Just because Operation INFEKTION was a lie doesn’t mean the systemic racism they highlighted in America was. They didn’t have to fabricate that part; America was doing a fine job creating that reality all on its own.
Yeah, no…they weren’t making up the systemic racism.
And this brings me to a critical point: propaganda isn’t always about lies. Propaganda can be blatant fabrications, but it can also involve taking real issues, twisting them, and using them to serve a specific narrative. It’s manipulation, not necessarily fiction.
Anyway, that was a long way around to explaining that just because America has lied in the past (oh, it has plenty), it doesn’t mean every statement the U.S. government makes about another country is automatically false. Similarly, just because America has serious issues (it absolutely does) doesn’t mean every country America dislikes is a paragon of virtue.
Take China, for example. Sure, China has things America doesn’t, but it also lacks things we currently (keyword: currently) have. Case in point: You and I can sit here criticizing the American government in public, in print, or in video without worrying about ending up in prison—unlike Huang Xueqin, a journalist who faced severe repercussions for speaking out in China.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
That said, what America will look like if Trump (or a similar figure) has their way in the future? That’s another story—and a terrifying one.
But please, for the love of Spock, let’s stop pretending that because the American government has a long history of hypocrisy and propaganda, every country it opposes is somehow amazing by default.
If you need a reminder, just ask the Feminist Five in China—once they’re no longer under 24/7 state surveillance, that is.
