We don't make anything. We are not part of the industrialized world. Only cops and old people buy clunky American cars. We’re retail, hotel and food services, financial services, medical services, with weak construction and transport sectors.
We have no trains and the worst roads in the modern world. Our rusted infrastructure is too broken to fix. Our cities are filthy magnets for our unemployables and lowlifes. American housing is dilapidated. We import almost all our appliances, medical equipment, and electronics. Our water supplies are chemical sludge ponds—New York City still pipes some of its unpalatable water from the Catskills in wooden conduits. Our food is rubbery, toxic, and stale. American electric grids hang by the thinnest wires. The entire country now has the whiff of Bayonne. The average American IQ is 79. One percent of our population owns 53% of our wealth.
Clearly, American exceptionalism is unexceptional.