@Hula Hoop, I usually am a defender of America in many ways but your post is spot on and there's not much more I can add.
Yeah, in case it wasn't clear, I'm an American living in Italy. And I usually defend the US too - not everything but just on certain things.
My relatives are in NYC so I've been watching this with horror from afar. While it's true that NY seemed to do the right thing to reduce numbers, I'm also under no illusion that NY will be able to keep it's numbers in control once things start shooting up everywhere else.
Actually as an American living outside the US, one thing that has been really sad is watching the US' prestige degrade before my eyes. Italians tend to think of the US as this golden land of opportunity (so many of them have relatives who emigrated to the US and did really well). I used to have Italians say to me all the time "if you're from America, why on earth did you decide to move here?" But now our Italian friends and random people I meet just seem to feel sorry for me - especially if they learn that I'm from NYC.
Yeah, I understand. My parents immigrated from a small European country that was formerly much poorer than the USA but is now richer, so sometimes I really wonder why I'm here. I am technically an EU citizen (with a very expired passport I need to dust off) and could (and should) get it for my kids as well, and could bring my wife through spousal rights. But USA has been good to my family personally and my wife doesn't want to move (she's more introverted than me and this is where her family and home is) so here we are. (My father and his family are double-immigrants, as they hail from an Eastern European country that's on paper still significantly less wealthy, but you know if you at people's actual lifestyles (smaller houses, more home cooking, more low key vacations, more time with family, etc.) money doesn't tell the whole story.
I mean I think America is a great place with a lot of positive attributes (and Donald Trump is egregious but there are other precedents, Bolsonaro, Berlusconi, Duerte, etc., unfortunately "bigoted right wing populist" is not just an American phenomenon, and I really do think this is just a bad moment in our history that will pass), but we really did mess this up. And we've generally had a self-imposed rough 20 years since the Iraq war. A lot of own goals there.
As long as we are on this subject, I really don't think it's sustainable for 4% of the world's population to try to play unilateral, perpetual world police and I don't think it's been beneficial for Americans (I'd like us to spend less on our military, and I actually agree with Trump that our NATO allies need to step up -- or we need to pull back) and we've made a lot of unnecessary enemies by trying to fulfill that role.
I really wouldn't mind if after all this everyone (Americans and international) started to recognize us as just one of many countries with a bunch of strengths and a bunch of weaknesses just like everyone else. It's ridiculous to try to lead the world while so much of our internal situation is in disarray. And, on the flip side, if the world thinks it's important to try to fix certain situations in the middle east, etc. I'd like to see some other countries spend significant money and put lives on the line as well, and if nobody else can be bothered then we should just mind our own business and focus on fixing our own shit as well.