Look , I don ' t deny that the United States has done some fucked up shit over the last century . Furthermore I admit that for the first time in a very long time I ' ve felt ashamed of my country over the last couple weeks . That said , the world really has been better off since WWII with American hegemony for lack of a better word . I entirely understand that to many Europeans my country must seem like a barbaric place at times especially in regards to some of our social politics and foreign policy , but the true honesttoGod reason why Europeans get to judge us from their liberal paradise is because of the sometimes ugly long arm of American foreign policy . I know that Americans like to bring this up a lot , but its a truism that regardless of what postCold War revisionist history might say , were it not for the United States and its bloated military industrial complex the world today would likely be dominated by either the Third Reich or the Soviet Union . Those really are the other two options . Two unfathomably evil powers that both quite literally would ' ve taken over the world or at least most of it without the United States . shrugsAnyways this is starting to get a little rambly so i ' ll end , but it just bothers me that so many of our cousins are so quick to dump us and cross their fingers for a better option when recent history warts and all has so clearly gone in the right direction . Anyways I say this in the immediate aftermath of the election of an unqualified , misogynistic , xenophobic , reality TV star to the Presidency don ' t give up on us so easily , we ' ll be back .