“Each American embassy comes with two permanent features – a giant anti-American demonstration and a giant line for American visas. Most demonstrators spend half their time burning Old Glory and the other half waiting for green cards.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

Jennifer McCoy, a political scientist at Georgia State University who co-wrote a recent report on how polarized countries have depolarized in the past, said partisan divisions have kept the United States stuck in place, but so has myopia: Americans rarely look abroad for ideas.

“We have such a myth around our Constitution and American exceptionalism,” she said. “First it makes people very complacent, and second, it takes leaders a very long time to recognize the risk we’re facing. It means it’s very hard to adapt.”