America Doesn’t Think About the Rest of the World — and That Drives Them CrAzY!

Ellsworth Toohey: “Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us.”
Howard Roark: “But I don’t think of you.”
—Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

It’s almost certainly fake news, but it’s HILARIOUSLY funny fake news:

Independent (Feb. 10, 2026): Trump Confused Greenland and Iceland So Much That Reykjavik Hired a DC Lobbyist for Advice: Report

President Donald Trump confused Greenland and Iceland so much that Reykjavík [capital city of Iceland] hired a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., for advice, according to a new report.
A newsletter published by The Bulwark Tuesday revealed that Iceland’s ambassador to the U.S., Svanhildur Hólm Valsdóttir, had hired lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck to “provide strategic advice on navigating engagements with the United States government.” [emphasis added]

Ah, so it’s piggybacking off a newsletter from The Bulwark — a media outlet for Never Trumpers by Never Trumpers — that’s wholly dedicated to undermining Trump’s agenda.

And that’s not just my opinion. In the words of Washingtonian, The Bulwark Was Founded to Oppose Trump:

The Weekly Standard was one of many Washington institutions that Donald Trump threw into chaos. In 2018, the 23-year-old conservative magazine was shut down by its pro-Trump owners after the publication’s staff adopted an anti-Trump stance. So Weekly Standard cofounder Bill Kristol and political strategist Sarah Longwell decided to create the Bulwark, a fun, punchy Never Trump website that found success—and broke news—catering to readers who yearned for serious coverage of events through a center-right filter.

Disregarding that description of The Bulwark as “fun” and “punchy,” the Independent’s Reykjavík story reveals how the mainstream media actually works: When a fringe, biased outlet like The Bulwark makes a bold, unsubstantiated — and almost certainly false — claim about its political enemies, other outlets amplify the message by pretending it’s God’s honest truth.

The Independent continued:

The Bulwark cited a Department of Justice filing dated last Wednesday that included a letter to the ambassador from Jason Buckner, an attorney with the lobbying firm, that laid out their agreement. The agreement included a monthly retainer fee of $25,000 for the next six months.
The filing went in-depth about what Brownstein would actually do to help the government of Iceland, including introducing officials to U.S. government stakeholders and giving “constructive feedback on emerging priorities” for Iceland.
While it’s not explicitly clear whether this new relationship has to do with Trump’s recent comments, The Bulwark pointed out the curious timing of it all. [emphasis added]

So that’s the big political scoop: The 46th largest country in Europe (population of 398,266) just spent a whopping $150,000 on lobbyists. (For comparison’s sake, Saudi Arabia spent nearly $57 million on lobbyists in just 2024.)

This paltry $150K expenditure anchored the entirety of The Bulwark’s fan fiction, which the Independent then parroted as fact: “Trump is such an idiot, the other countries don’t even know what to do, hahahaha, amiright?”

Whereas the Independent gleefully quoted from The Bulwark’s newsletter, its “news report” lacked ANY quotes from Icelandic officials, ambassadors, representatives, and leaders. (Odd thing for an unbiased media outlet to omit, eh?)

It’s one-half conjecture, one-half a political hit-piece — and 100% anti-Trump propaganda masquerading as real “news.”

But it also reveals a stubborn, undeniable truth about how America sees the world, and how the world sees America: They think about us a helluva lot more than we think about them.

We’re Don Draper; they’re the other guy in the elevator:

Marketers use the term “world class” to denote high-quality, but most of the world isn’t exactly high-end:

420 million people defecate in public
2 billion lack safe drinking water
2.6 billion cannot afford a healthy diet
3.4 billion don’t have internet access
3.6 billion live in unsanitary conditions
5.8 billion — 72% of the global population — live under autocratic rule

Forget about “world class.” Even “Vegas class” is vastly better than “world class!”

Meanwhile, here in America:

43% of “poor people” own their own homes
Nearly 50% of poor women (SNAP eligible) are obese
Nearly 75% of poor people own a car — and 31% own two or more
80% of poor households have air conditioning
89% of poor households have microwave ovens
94% of poor households are undercrowded — with over 66% having two or more rooms per person
97% of poor households have color TVs
97% of poor adults under 50 have a smart phone

Fun fact: On average, poor Americans have more living space than the AVERAGE resident of Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other European cities.

That’s the benefit of being a superpower: When you’re the king of the jungle, your roar is the only one that matters. As George R.R. Martin wrote, “A lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinion of sheep.”

Until recently, most American presidents were sensitive to the rest of the world’s insecurities and toned down their star-spangled hubris.

We treated foreigners as equals, even when they were closer to vassals.

President Barack Obama was at the top of the list, dismissing the theory of American exceptionalism, likening it to run-of-the-mill nationalism — no different than any other country: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” In Obama’s mind, there was nothing exceptional about American exceptionalism.

That was music to the ears of international diplomats! Why, we’re all equals!

What happened next was all too predictable: Foreign leaders conflated our modesty as weakness. To score domestic political points, they bashed America at every turn — while simultaneously expecting the good ol’ U.S. to continue to underwrite their safety, security, and global trade.

American generosity directly led to jealousy, dependency, and resentment. Nothing we did was ever good enough!

Hollywood helped the process, too. A 2002 study showed that the more access countries had to American TV and films, the more negative they felt towards the American people.

Then came Donald Trump, who built “Make America Great Again” into a national movement. His north star was reestablishing American supremacy — and he did so unapologetically, leveraging American assets to enhance our bargaining position.

After all, if it’s acceptable for all the other nations to act in their national interests, why shouldn’t we?

But it’s America’s indifference to foreign opinions that has baffled and frustrated non-Americans for decades. On the r/AskAnAmerican Reddit message board, questions like “Is it true that Americans do not care about what foreigners think of them?” have 900+ replies.

Even the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation pondered the query, “What do Americans really think of Canada?”

Honest answer: See Don Draper.

One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First. It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.

Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.

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