The Things America Got Right
If the Republic is dying, then we might as well celebrate our greatest hits.
Look, team. It’s not looking great. Between a man with literal worms for brains gutting the Health and Human Services department, suggesting we give bird flu to birds to create super birds and the Gestapo kidnapping of an immigrant for… apparently only expressing an opinion, it’s safe to say the American republic is on its way out. Without habeas corpus, without the first amendment, there is really no point in pretending this is the nation it has always claimed to be. And look, obviously the courts will try and fight this, and who knows, maybe we come out of this a better, more constitutionally secure nation, but that’s not gonna happen until the fever breaks, and we’re having the kind of fever I had when I had salmonella at 14 and spent all day playing the Scarface Xbox video game and had a dream where Shakira was taking my turf so I had to send my goons to kill her goons.
In light of that, I thought it’d be fun to create a list of the good things America produced while it was still what it always claimed to be:
Liberal democracy: only 90s kids will remember. Pretty cool.
The Hoover Dam: Pretty magnificent. Big concrete thing go whoosh.
The Big Mouth Billy Bass: It is a fish that sings “Take me to the river.” Hilarious. You can program your Alexa to work out of it these days. Incredible.
The Skechers that made your butt look good. Come on. In the end they were a lie and Skechers got sued for saying they toned your butt, but pretty cool.
The airplane. Yeah, everyone hates airports, but the airplane? The tube that traverses the skies in the way that humans could only dream of 150 years ago? Pretty great.
The light bulb: Thomas Edison was a bad man. He was a liar and a crook and a thieving bastard. But thanks to him candles are now just for making your house smell nice or putting on a weird candlestick holder and pretending you’re a Victorian ghost.
Speaking of Thomas Edison: this video of cats boxing. Sure, there may have been some mild animal cruelty involved, but it’s legit the first cat video and it’s hilarious.
The hearing aid: pretty neat invention! No complaints on that one!
The chocolate chip cookie: someone invented the platonic ideal of a cookie. We’ve had biscuits and little treats before. We will have biscuits and little treats after, but the chocolate chip cookie, invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield in 1938, is the new standard of cookies. Every cookie you will ever have, will be, in your mind, compared to the best chocolate chip cookie you’ve ever had. And it will likely pale in comparison. My ideal chocolate chip cookie? Dark chocolate and plenty of salt.
AI language learning and imaging models: omg can you imagine. No, these are ass and they make bad art and make you bad at writing and learning critical skills. I’m no luddite, but I am still to discover an actual use for these things. It feels like Silicon Valley is just trying so hard to sell us a product we don’t need, but because these companies run on an endless growth and valuation model, they need to create something that will “change the game” every few years and because bored apes and crypto wasn’t it, they’ve decided it’s a machine that will give you bad art at the expense of the Amazon rainforest. American companies used to MAKE things! Go and MAKE something! On that note:
LASER: it can fix your eyes, measure lunar topography, and give people at raves a reason to enjoy looking at a guy pressing play on his or her laptop. An incredible wonder. Also a fun word. Kudos to the guys who came up with laser but also with the acronym.
Musical Theatre: one of the truly American art forms. Theater kids are the worst, but every person should see a Broadway musical. A good one. Every person should see a Broadway musical that isn’t “Finding Neverland” with Kelsey Grammer.
Peanut butter: okay, here’s the thing, I don’t really like peanut butter. BUT! I like most other nut butters. And they wouldn’t be here without ol’ PB. So, PB is up there for me! It’s a great snack. It’s good on fruit. It’s packed with protein.
The Turtle Excluder Device: It does exactly what you think it does. It is a device that allows turtles to escape when they’re caught in a fisherman’s net. Like hearing aids, good invention. Glad we have that.
The Space Shuttle: look, I know a bunch ‘sploded. And there was the one with the teacher… but most of Elon Musk’s rockets also ‘splode. And they don’t look as cool. And as far as we know the Space Shuttle was the only space rocket we built that wasn’t designed by Nazis. As a kid from the 90s, I love the Space Shuttle.
Huckleberry Finn: yes, it is that good. Possibly the best book ever written in this country and about this country. “All right, then. I’ll go to Hell.” is possibly the line that represents America the best. We’re all dumb and stupid and ignorant. And then we learn. And then we take action and do something because we know it is the right thing to do. It is funny and old and timeless and will make you cry. Mark Twain really was that bitch.
Anyway, I’m sure there’s more good stuff, but these are the things I remembered while writing this.
As a reminder, my book is out, and if you enjoy my writing, you should buy it or order it for your public library. And then buy a million copies for all your friends!
Here’s my book cover. It’s VERY pretty.
Okay, bye! Thanks for reading! If you think of a thing America got right, put it in the comments! But no pressure.
Love this article!