There was a time, not long ago, when the United States seemed home to the best and the brightest. Its scientists won Nobel Prizes, more than any other country by an enormous margin. Its technology firms blazed paths to brave new worlds. Its studios dominated global entertainment, disseminating dreams worldwide. So-called lesser countries endured “brain drain”—the outward stream of their most educated citizens. The United States, by contrast, was the churning sea of talent and enterprise into which all those rivers flowed.
The fall has been fast and, one might add, furious. Today, the image of the country is less the wise sage than the village idiot. During a terrifying pandemic, its president peddles quack cures, his uninspiring opponent appears out of touch, an eviction crisis looms, and more than a third of the populace reports that it would refuse a free vaccine if offered. As other countries return to normalcy, the United States prepares ineffectively for a second wave. It already accounts for a fifth of COVID-19 cases worldwide; the virus has killed nearly 200,000 of its inhabitants. Taiwan, by contrast, has kept its death count under 10. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has seen only 88 of its citizens die, has a better contact-tracing system than the United States.
