Paul you should perhaps look at my next article to get my motivation:

https://erik-engheim.medium.com/western-arrogance-and-hypocrisy-ff94f280446c

The point here is not to give the US a free pass and let all the conservatives beat their chest and shout USA, USA, USA!

The point I am trying to get across that democracy and free speech are not the primary causes of the problems experienced in the US. Far more important reasons are found in uncritical embrace of capitalism and the idea of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism.

I am a social democrat and advocate of more socialist policies. More power to workers etc. That should be clear in my other writing. If you think I am an apologist for free wheeling American capitalism exploiting people, then you are not reading my story with the best intention.

I am not judging. I shoot from the hip myself often because I get too used to certain narratives from different ideological groups. But I am telling you now, and I hope will read what I write with this in mind.

What motivated me to write this defense of the West was the constant criticism of the West by people who are champions of autocrats like Xi and Putin. We cannot be so knee deep and narrowly focused on criticism of ourselves that we suddenly become useful idiots for the advocats of dictatorship.

The solution to American problems is not the abandonment of democracy and free speech but in strengthening those instutions. This may seem like a foreign thought to you but there are many claiming the American problems you outline as being cause by democracy. That is an idea I loudly reject.