Black Man’s Smoldering Body Recovered, Raises Tough Questions about America’s Future

Yesterday, police uncovered another ghastly hate crime, this one in Iowa, outside of a community well known for white supremacist activity. A black grandfather’s body was founding burning, lying in a ditch.

It’s not news to Americans that the incidence of race-based crimes and hate-group activity is skyrocketing.  And, as shown below, it’s really not news to anyone anywhere that the image of the U.S. on the world stage has taken a terrible hit. 

Keep in mind that these surveys were conducted before the recent spate of police killings of unarmed black men, the botched handling of the pandemic, the abandonment of the Kurds in Northern Syria, the extortion of Ukraine, the impeachment, the tell-all books, the rebuke by top military personnel, the amping up of child separation, the trade war with China, the conviction of Trump advisor Roger Stone and the commutation of his prison sentence, the purging of White House whistleblowers, the suggestion of ingesting or injecting disinfectants to treat COVID-19, ordering the slowdown of testing so as to find fewer cases, the appointment of a huge campaign donor to run (and retard the service of) the U.S. Post Office, the gassing of peaceful protesters to make way for Trump’s bible/church photo-op, the political rallies without masks on participants, the story that Trump had called U.S. soldiers “losers” and “suckers,” the pardoning of a war criminal, the calling for a boycott against Goodyear Tire, damaging its 62,000 employees.

Here’s the world confidence that Trump can be trusted to do the right thing in world affairs.  Germany: 13%.  We are regarded with a strange mixture of pity and contempt.