Recently, Sunny Hostin, one of the MAGA-hating co-hosts on “The View,” ranted that she was “embarrassed at how America is now seen across the globe,” that U.S. allies are now giving America “a one-star rating as a country,” and that our nation is a “failed experiment” in self-governance.
Aside from the question of how Hostin could even know how nations “across the globe” view America, she should realize that if the United States is such an embarrassment, how is it that, since our founding, millions of migrants have willingly endured untold hardships to enter our country?
And throughout our history, immigration-related rejection of Hostin’s glass-half-empty embarrassment mindset has been far more the rule than the exception.
In fact, with the single exception of the Great Depression, immigration to the U.S. has always far exceeded emigration. And it doesn’t take a genius to understand that incoming multitudes have always sought greater freedom, economic opportunity, and political stability than were available in less “embarrassing” nations.
Even so, if America’s behavior on the world stage was completely self-serving, perhaps Hostin might have a point in criticizing the United States. But again, her attacks are uninformed and show an utter lack of appreciation for who we are as a people and as a nation.
In 2024, the U.S. obligated $86 billion in foreign assistance across 213 countries and regions. That amount included development aid, global health, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance. Overall, in absolute dollars, the U.S. is the world’s largest foreign aid donor and is often the single largest and fastest contributor to disaster response, global hunger needs, and emergency medical aid.
And while some developed nations allocate a larger share of their GDP to foreign aid, because the United States military is undeniably the single greatest protector of freedom throughout the world, its added cost more than offsets the foreign aid difference among smaller democracies.
Additionally, our “embarrassing” nation not only protects freedom in peacetime, but has also sacrificed blood and treasure in war without gaining or even suggesting territory as compensation.
This has been true since 1900, when U.S. policy morally shifted away from annexing conquered territory toward postwar reconstruction after both World Wars and the Korean conflict. And that was so even at the cost of well over half a million American lives.
But as impressive as our foreign aid has been, it would mean less if Americans were suffering more than citizens of equally developed nations. However, that is clearly not the case.
That is, in terms of access to services such as electricity, internet, education, and sanitation, the standard of living for Americans is among the best in the world. According to the World Bank, the U.S. has a higher per capita gross disposable household income than anywhere else.
Paradoxically, although our overall ranking in the above categories is very high, the average life expectancy for Americans is nearly four years less than that of citizens of economically comparable nations. And that is so despite our nation spending nearly twice as much on healthcare as peer countries do.
However, as much as critics may blame America for that life expectancy shortfall, the failure lies far less with our nation than with a cluster of self-inflicted lifestyle wounds. These include a relatively high number of deaths from chronic diseases, obesity, illicit drug overdoses, alcohol abuse, accidents, and homicides.
Specifically, no other developed nation comes close to America in substance abuse deaths, which are four times higher than in economically comparable nations. More troubling still, U.S. opioid deaths alone account for nearly a year of our life expectancy deficit compared with other advanced countries. And if those statistics were not horrific enough, the U.S. homicide rate is up to 10 times greater than the average of all other developed states.
While it is therefore no mystery why, on average, Americans die nearly four years earlier than citizens of economically similar nations, a mystery remains about how Hostin, raised by teenage parents of modest means, could earn millions of dollars in a nation she now devalues as a glass-half-empty “embarrassment.”
Certainly, Hostin’s professional efforts and her law degree deserve credit. However, describing our incredibly generous republic, which crushed fascism, weakened communism, defanged ISIS, achieved countless medical breakthroughs, and went to the moon, as an embarrassment should shame only one person. And that is Hostin herself.
But maybe such introspection is a bridge too far for the same woman who believes Trump’s “bad juju” at Madison Square Garden caused the Knicks to lose Game 3 of the NBA championship series.
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