Strongest Nation Brands

Boom roasted

You could make an american flag of how many asterisks are needed there.

Wish I had a pound for how often some similar comment about our civilisation in Western Europe crumbling under immigration has been said - over the last 150 years at least, and no doubt before.

ed1969 is telling it like it is.TinklePork is telling it like Trump wants people to tell it or hear it. The US brand is diminishing by the second for those of us non-US citizens who live in countries that have supported the US for the last 100 years or so. Wake up America. It's not too late...but it is getting close. You can go it alone, but, EVERY great empire crumbles...usually from within.

Lol the stock market crashed and is now super volatile.

Don’t act stupid. While I somewhat agree, Trump won’t brag about the economy when it collapses. He’s more worried about drinking 8 cokes and eating 12 scoops of ice cream each day.

One of the main strengths of the US for centuries has been the fact that it attracted so many talented and hard working immigrants. Of course there have also always been nativist bigots whose ancestors immigrated three generations before trying to keep out or send back those who just got there or who had only been around for a generation or two... but... to the USA's credit most of the time those people are largely ignored. Not saying the situation today in Europe is exactly the same, or that the US's record is flawless, just pointing out that xenophobes have always been there and they've always been wrong in the past.

As for the US "brand"... not even sure what that means, really. The six metrics listed don't seem to have much to do with one another or with branding, and I'm not sure how you would even measure some of them. The way I think of a strong "brand" is the perception that people have of the country. As an American who lives overseas and travels all over the world I think I'm pretty in touch with this. Through the late 90s I'd say the American brand was clearly paramount worldwide. There were people who didn't like the country or its culture or foreign policy, but largely they were loved, respected, and admired even amongst their enemies (such as the recently defeated USSR). The brand took a huge hit during the Bush years. People lost respect for the country and Bush's my way or the highway approach to diplomacy rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The Iraq war was a debacle that squandered the political capital the country gained post 9/11.

Obama did a lot to repair the brand. We replaced the guy who most saw as a cowboy bumpkin with another who was intelligent, worldly, and well-spoken. Bridges with Europe and the Muslim world were mended. And though Bush was pretty popular in Africa, electing a half-African president helped America's image on that continent as well. After the Bush administration tanked the global economy the Obama administration did a lot to get it back on track. Some would take issue with Obama's judicious use of predator drones, and too much damage had been done to get the brand back to where it was in the 90s, but it was a marked improvement.

and now... back in the toilet again and down the drain. Probably lower than at any point in history. And as the US becomes less relevant other countries, as mentioned, have been stepping in to fill the void. Notably Germany, China, and Russia. Effects on the economy remain to be seen. It took Bush 7 years to turn the Clinton boom into global recession.

@Quizmaster, stop being so rational! This is an online message board that has strayed into politics (especially trump-related politics). NO reasonable opinions are allowed!

There are 17 responses to Ed's comment, only 2 of which are less than perfectly reasonable.

kalbahamut I'm sorry, but I have to vehemently disagree with you on this one. There hasn't been a President that was good for the economy since Reagan, and maybe the current President. The economic boom under Clinton had nothing to do with him; he was just in office when the Fed blew up the interest rate until the NASDAQ crash of '00, and also during the Dot Com bubble. Meanwhile, Trump cut the corporate tax rate, incentivizing American corporations headquartered overseas to come back here. He got us out of NAFTA, which was a horrible deal by every measure. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since the 90s, and we're slowly reversing the national debt, which was tripled under His Majesty Obama (literally we incurred more debt under him than than the previous 43 presidents combined, and it was directly related to his monetary policies, which massively expanded almost every government program).

Furthermore, no one on any side is talking about getting rid of all immigrants. The immigrants you mentioned all came here legally, and assimilated into American society, adopting her language, culture, and ideals. The immigrants the current administration is trying to dispose of are criminal, illegal aliens who sneaked across the border, showing an inherent disregard for our laws by definition of their being here. And many if not most of them are violent, murderous gang members who rape and murder innocent American citizens, including one teenager maybe 20 minutes from where I live, not to mention taking their jobs away. In fact, since so many illegal aliens have been deported under Trump, many black American citizens have happily filled the void in the job market left by all the criminals, and now black unemployment is at its lowest rate since the 40s. I know there's more than one factor at play there, but the criminals being deported is a huge one.

Not sure what word of my response got it flagged for removal. I tried to correct the above insanity. Don't have the patience to sort through it again.

Year later....ouch.

I strolled through the comments. And now I'm wondering what TinklePork would say today.

You mean like... Putin? Erdogan? Duterte? All of the world leaders that Trump most admirers? If he could get away with it I'm sure Trump would have no problem with jailing citizens critical of him, assassinating reporters who didn't applaud his speeches, and everything else that these goons he has openly praised and supported do. So far Trump has been restrained by the US Constitution, Congress, what's left of the American news media, and by his own laziness, incompetence, and inability to lead. But in a different world, things would get ugly fast. The man doesn't care about anything other than himself.

Once LeBron starts getting old, realizes that his playing days are over, and advertising become his main source of income... yes, he'd probably have to care about how others feel about him.

<3 those weirdos...

Well if you think I’m talking absolute nonsense kalbahamut, here’s an article for you to find out more about Sweden’s current issues. As you’re anti Trump, I think you’ll appreciate it comes from CNN... https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/europe/sweden-trump-refugees-integration/index.html

My being anti-Trump comes from my respect for reality and has nothing to do with CNN.

The article you link to is fair, even-handed, and grounded in fact. It doesn't report anything that I wasn't already aware of. It talks about recent waves of immigration and some predictable problems the country has had with integrating these immigrants. It mentions one riot that took place in an immigrant neighborhood. It also says nothing about Sweden becoming a 3rd world country, or neighborhoods so overrun by violent anarchists that police are afraid to enter. There is a quote from one person who said they didn't feel safe walking outside, followed by a comment from police that these feelings were unwarranted. You can't even see that what you wrote before (the comments seem to have since been deleted) was an overstatement?