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The problem with this dismissive attitude is that you are trying to have it both ways.
- The U.S. Constitution has been a matter of great influence on later constitutions and legal thinking throughout the world. Its influence appears in similarities of phrasing and actual borrowed passages, as well as in the principles of the rule of law, the separation of powers and the recognition of individual rights. More recently, I would direct you to read the new democratic constitutions of Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia after the Arab Spring.
- The American Civil War was influential as the world watched Americans put a decisive end to the idea that slavery was acceptable. In 1862, there were only two independent sovereign nations ruled by Africans or people of African descent, Haiti and Liberia. Lincoln recognized both and declared a "new birth of freedom" as he transformed the Monroe Doctrine of American foreign policy into transcending color.
- After World War I, colonies throughout the world clung to Wilson's Fourteen Points and translated its wording as meaning their independence from colonial masters. Ho Chi Minh, and so many others, literally traveled to Paris in the hopes of meeting Wilson so that they could argue their case.
- After World War II, U.S. admiration was on an extreme high as so many societies around the world sought our culture, our socioeconomic systems, and our governing principles in order to rebuild from devastation or create anew in their discovered independence.
- The Civil Right's movement forced much of the world's racist systems to adjust within their respective countries, leaving South Africa's apartheid sitting largely alone.
- And one President after another, since Reagan, has presented America as John Winthrop’s "City Upon the Hill."
We don't seem to have any problem recognizing and accepting that America's history does, in fact, involve leading the world to a better place through the positive influences of our own internal struggles. This struggle is about achieving what the Founding Fathers put us on the path for; and it is projected outward through foreign policy and diplomacy. Americans have traditionally loved to insist that the U.S. is the "high moral ground" example for all others to follow. But when it comes to other things we pretend that negativity has no influence whatsoever. Why do you think Europeans and others are fond of exacerbating and even exaggerating whenever America slips up? Europeans spent the entire Cold War looking for reasons to excuse World War II and their wider history. The psychological notion that "if America does it, it is OK" is real. Dictators everywhere rely on America's less than honorable history to legitimize their behaviors. This is why "pre-emptive" strikes and political moves such as impeachment must always have solid grounding.
Now, we have a President who has instigated violence upon the media during his rallies, routinely denigrates local and world leaders, validates the existence of far right-wing moods through his political extremism, and is on record for seeking to delegitimize American elections, in 2008, 2016, and even now in 2018. You think the world isn't watching? You think the alt-right showed up en masse at Trump rallies, and then went on to boldly push a political voice on accident? You think a constant tirade about how Washington is a "swamp" and that corruption defines American democracy and that the free press is an enemy isn't influential? With hate-crimes exponentially on the rise over the last three years, these people are obviously feeding off of Trump's immature, irresponsible, and aggressive behavior.
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