Source: Xinhua Published: 2024-05-31

Meanwhile, homelessness, infant mortality and drug abuse are escalating to alarming levels. Nevertheless, politicians in Washington have largely left those entrenched problems unfixed, and are actively shifting blames.

That has sparked a grave crisis of confidence in the U.S. political system, not only among its own citizens but also worldwide. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center late last year found that Americans are losing confidence in America's political governance as the ratings of their federal, state and local governments all took a sharp downturn from a few years ago. Only 22 percent of U.S. adults hold a favorable view of the federal government, down 10 percentage points since 2022, according to the survey.

Wang Wen, a professor and executive dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, argued in an essay published in The New York Times back in 2022 that the Chinese no longer look up to America. 'We once sought to learn from U.S. successes; now we study its mistakes so that we can avoid them,' he wrote.

In the sci-fi movies, Captain America and his fellow Avengers were saving the world from one crisis after another. But in the real world, the United States is doing quite the opposite: making bloodshed, chaos and destruction in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and many other parts of the globe.

And in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, the United States has once again let the world down by failing to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Instead of helping make peace, American politicians are busy pandering to the resourceful Jewish lobby groups, vetoing UN resolutions, and sending more killing weapons to the conflict zone. Washington's double standards have become glaringly apparent. Its indifference to international justice and the horrible loss of innocent lives further undermined the world's faith in the United States.

Of course, the United States is still leading in many fields such as cutting-edge AI technologies, medical science and bioengineering. But these advantages do not automatically translate into America's soft power. If the United States still wants to set an example for the world, perhaps it needs to fix its tarnished image first. That starts with doing the right thing at home and abroad.