I might want to start my post with stating that I have not lived in the US for any long time. My knowledge is basically that of a total of possibly 2 months spent there on business trips. I have mainly lived in Europe and Asia so far.
Nevertheless, I do interact a lot with Americans, follow American news and, of course, much of the media I consume (books, movies, TV, internet) is produced in the US, so I do have some kind of an outsider's view.
Please allow me to use a very recent event in the US to illustrate my personal opinion of the US and its inhabitants:
NYPD Looks Into Shocking Video of Officers Wrestling a 1-Year-Old From His Mother’s Arms
To shortly summarize the story, a black 23-year-old woman with her 1-year-old baby went to the Brooklyn Human Ressources Association that was packed. She sat down on the floor with her baby. A security person informed her that she is not allowed to sit on the floor. Very likely she asked the security person what else she was supposed to do as there were no free seats and 'gave some lip'. The security person replied by calling the police, which arrived and proceeded to arrest the woman for sitting on the floor. The officers in a very aggressive way yanked her baby from her hands, handcuffed her and arrested her. The story ended with her being held without bail for resisting arrest and child endangerment. After some time, the NYC administration is now "looking into the incident", with several politicians so far expressing dismay about her treatment.
This raises, to me, some thoughts about the people involved.
1) The security person(s) and the other people working at the HRA - supposedly social services workers: How in the world would you consider it a good idea to call the police on a mother with a baby for sitting on the floor? Is that how "social services" are handled in the US?
2) The other people sitting there - how is that even possible? Let's be very honest - in the event that something similar to this happened in Europe, if a mother with a 1-year-old baby comes and does not find a seat, and nobody immediately himself volunteered to give up his seat, by the time a security person starts to berate the mother for sitting on the floor, I personally would be way to ashamed to continue to sit on a seat and look at that mother being threatened with the police. I simply could not stay sitting and mind my own business, and I guess a good portion of people would think the same. How is that even possible that able-bodied people continue to look at this, and say to themselves "Well, lucky I have a seat, too bad for her" ???
3) The police - specifically the female officer who aggressively and rudely tries to yank the baby from his mothers arms, with no regard at all for the well-being of that baby? It looks like a football game with people tackling the other team's quarterback and trying to get him to release the ball. Everybody who is elder than 6 years should understand or know by now that is no way to treat a baby. In the first place, how could those people claiming to "protect and serve", who were summoned via a 911 (emergency) call, not a) inform the security person that a lady sitting on the floor and being uncivil does not constitute an emergency, and b) ask the assembled people whether there was not somebody to free up a seat so this whole situation could be remedied? No, they moved in on her for not doing as the powers to be told her, regardless of her health and well-being and that of her small baby. If they remind me of anything, then of the "Peace-Keepers", the fascist suppression force in the "Hunger Games" dystopian fantasy.
4) The people hearing about this incident - While there was, understandably, an uproar about this video, there were also a number of people who continued to claim that "it was her own fault" and "she was the only one to blame" ... for not doing as she was told. No real need to check those people's facebook profiles ... but for the sake of completeness yes, they are all white, yes they all have praise for President Trump on their timeline. They presumably use their own real names, complete with place of work to stand proudly and claim that if you are a criminal (for sitting down on the floor) you deserve what happens to you and your baby. I have to say that I can only hope that some of those are not real American people but paid Russian trolls.
So ... how is all that relevant for the question at hand?
What I personally think I have observed time and again is that many Americans are mainly motivated by greed, fear, egotism and quite likely racism. They do not care anything about compassion as long as showing no compassion can lower their personal taxes a little bit. They look down on poor people, sick people, old people, presumably because they themselves are lucky enough to be affluent, healthy and still young, so they see no need to be compassionate to others that are not as lucky.
While in Europe people are typically not enthusiastic about their personal tax burdens (which are much higher, on average, than in the US), everybody understands that taxes are a necessary evil in a society that is needed to build roads, finance universities, pay doctors' salaries and provide pensions for people who are retired. As I see history, the US was founded by a bunch of people who were unhappy about having to pay taxes to the English king (granted, at that time, those taxes were likely spent on more frivolous things), and it seems - to me - that this history has somehow infected the national character.
So, how it looks to me, Trump is not the cause of this. He is a mere symptom. In the 2016 election, 28 % of the voters actively voted for Clinton, 27 % voted for Trump, and 43 % did not care enough to vote. (Likely they felt it did not really concern them, or were fine with the possible outcome, so why bother).
To me that suggests that Trump - with all his greed, deceitfulness,hate, racism, fear-mongering, incompetence, arrogance and laziness ... is exactly the president that can claim to rightfully represent that country. Too bad for the roughly 30% who think otherwise and try to be compassionate ... and the rest of mankind who has to live with the results of that election and the resulting policies since then.
