FWIW, I've noticed this with non-Americans too. I did a backpacking trip around the world when I was 25, and the proportion of European women (always women) who

FWIW, I've noticed this with non-Americans too. I did a backpacking trip around the world when I was 25, and the proportion of European women (always women) who felt like it was their duty to lecture or question me about the US's unique evil was absurd. Unsurprisingly, I was a lot more informed and a _lot_ better at arguing than they were, so it was pretty trivial to completely demolish their points quickly enough that it didn't turn into "an argument", with the attendant social friction of disagreements that drag on. I no longer spend much time around women in their early 20s, so I'm spared these extremes of ignorance, but I still occasionally come across the same tendency occasionally, albeit with a lot more maturity. The US is still something close to a global hegemon, so it's a target for hyperbolic projection by every simpleton in the world that wants to sound educated on geopolitics. Note that this also includes the best-country-in-the-world jingoists that can't recognize America's exceptional positive qualities without violently dismissing its exceptional negative qualities. I have an uncle who's convinced that literally every conflict in the Middle East is entirely the US's fault, entirely ignoring a region that's been beset by conflict for millennia, as well as the modern borders drawn in crayon by the British on their way out. The best strategy, on HN and in real life, is to nod & smile & understand that these people have no hope of and no interest in understanding reality.