The country I live in indeed never did any of that. True, I won’t whitewash it and say that it never did again wrong, but we had no colonies. We were often subjected to colonization (in our case, by Austria)

It’s not that people here support Trump. The American called me a Trump supporter.

I also don’t understand why this would be bait?

I gave pretty much all the context. We were sitting at a pub, they has a Harris pin and were very political from the get go. Very excited to share their political beliefs. So that’s what lead me to asking that question. It seemed like fair game with all the political messaging

Thank you for the comment.

The funny (or sad) thing is that in school, we’re taught to view the US in exactly the three points you talked about - that it is only thanks to the U.S. that we’re now free (as opposed to the oppressive tyrannical regime we lived under during socialism), the U.S. is a perfect example of democracy, and that, I shit you not, Democrats are center-left and Republicans center-right.

I used to believe that shit too, until I started visiting the U.S. internet through Imgur at first and then Reddit. The realities of the U.S. were finally laid bare, and that’s the moment the illusion shattered and I became a communist. It was similar with Germany; we were taught how we were some sort of subhumans compared to Germans, and that Germany is the best country in the world with no problems, and that everybody in Germany is rich.

Our people are also duped by U.S. agencies that run rampant in our country, and it’s honestly sad.

Thanks for the comment. It’s really strange, because here, there’s very little politics-based tribalism. Sure, you have some crazy right-wingers and ancaps that have sprung up after our socialist system was murdered, but if this student is anything to go by, they’re still tame by comparison.

I can see how this student would get isolated, then come back to the U.S. telling everyone how horrible our country is because nobody wanted to talk to them.

Right, I understand now. Thank you 😊

Thanks for the very detailed response. It’s interesting insight.

I don’t think I’ll speak to them again, or want to at all. They have already angered a few other people, and I think they’ll eventually get isolated because nobody will talk to them (apart maybe from the couple other American exchange students). We really did our best to make this student feel included despite their unrelated mishap (calling our school racist because we didn’t have any black people, in a country that’s 95% culturally homogenous and speaks a Slavic language).

You’re probably right, it did occur to me that you have to be from a certain socioeconomic background to be able to study here.

I have one related question, which also stems from me not knowing much about the anglosphere: I’ve read a few responses, and some people are assuming this person was a woman. I didn’t specify their gender on purpose in the OP, but they were a man. Why did people assume they were a woman?