> There must be a huge effective propaganda machine I believe that a lot of it is just "culture". Many (most?) Americans grow up being told that the US are the

> There must be a huge effective propaganda machine I believe that a lot of it is just "culture". Many (most?) Americans grow up being told that the US are the best country in the world, everybody wants to live there, "the american dream", "the land of the free", "the only democracy", etc. In most places in the world, people learn about the US at least through movies. Do Americans watch non-US movies? It feels like most Americans genuinely believe in this "meritocracy" bullshit, and on top of that they believe that they themselves are worth more than the average American. Obviously "meritocracy" is bullshit (Trump inherited, he did not build anything), and obviously most Americans cannot be better than most Americans. But this is not enough to break a whole cultural background leading to those beliefs. At least that's how I explain how they may have this completely skewed view of what "free speech" means, or why they truly believe that "government == always bad" or "regulations == always bad".