Anchorage firefighters responded to multiple suspicious fires that started during the abatement of homeless camps at Davis Park in Anchorage on June 17. (Bill Roth / ADN)

Is the United States a First World nation?

It was exceptionally disturbing to read in the ADN on June 18 the difficulties involved in removing the Davis park homeless camp. Our municipality is doing what many local municipalities are doing in response to larger economic issues. Local governments are bearing the cost of national economic policies.

In that same issue, we saw Tom Begich’s impassioned commentary objecting to the impending collapse of our national politics, accelerated by the assassination of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. (Mr. Begich did not know when he wrote this that the political right-wing is attempting to blame this crime on “leftists.”) He wrote, “We must reject these calls to hate. They are not us. They will not define us. We are better than this.” I will return to this quote below.

Why this degree of homelessness, and why this degree of murderous hatred? Is the United States approaching second- or third-world status?

I invite the reader to examine the sixteen key indicators of national well-being listed below. They are drawn from sources such as Pew Research, Yale University Environmental Performance Index, Forbes Magazine and other online statistical sources. These are USA global rankings or G7 rankings.

• Military might: 1st

• Aggregate wealth: 1st

• Poverty: highest among G7 nations; (36.8 million Americans live in poverty)

• Income inequity: 1st among G7 nations

• Per capita average wealth: 3rd

• Per capita median wealth: 15th (According to Forbes Magazine, this discrepancy is caused by the fact that 70% of our wealth is in the hands of 10% of the population.)

• Infant mortality (considered to be the most reliable indicator of national health): 54th of 135 countries

• Longevity: 53rd globally

• Spending on health care: 1st

• Crime rate: 59th globally

• Murder rate: more than six times higher than most of the G7 nations

• Education: 13th globally (24th science, 39th math, 24th reading, but closer to 17th, 35th, and 14th when adjusting upwards to exclude nations with similar scores)

• Government transparency and corruption: 24th of 180 countries

• Personal safety and security: 132nd globally. (This according to World Population Review’s Global Peace Index. Snopes is skeptical about some of their methodology but endorses the general conclusion.)

• Quality of environment: 43rd of 180 countries

• Happiness: 21st globally

The big number to start with is our aggregate wealth, which is truly staggering. When we put this up against the 36.8 million Americans who live in poverty, and our dismal showing on income inequity, and the fabulous incomes of the richest 10%, we begin to see why homelessness is simultaneously pervasive and a cause for national shame. Yet Trump has put the super-wealthy in charge of much of his administration. It is impossible to believe that Trump, Musk or any of the rest of this administration cares about income equity. To the contrary, the administration has consistently undermined services that most of us need and that the rich can ignore. Now we watch Congress craft laws that will impoverish most Americans even more while enriching the already rich. Homelessness is a piece of this. At one time, we pitied the people in third-world slums who live in cardboard boxes. That is now who we are.

I think the rest of the statistics speak for themselves and tell a very sad story. However, I will point out that we can only expect crime to get worse, specifically political crime, as Tom Begich fears. Since Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 rioters, right-wing terrorists and murderers, such as Vance Boelter, the murderer of Rep. Hortman, will understand that as permission to be violent; even an invitation; and as high-level people like Sen. Mike Lee and Elon Musk twist the story of Hortman to blame the innocent, then some will indeed conclude that they have a license to kill.

But most importantly, many of these poor rankings, such as health, crime, and education, come straight back to poverty and income inequity.

When 36.8 million people suffer every day from poverty, and 19,252 people were murdered just in 2023 alone, and 16,576 firearms deaths occurred in 2024, 1403 of them children, I cannot believe that we will solve homelessness or murder, particularly political murder, under the current regime. In fact, there is no evidence that anyone in power at the federal level wants to solve these problems.

Nearly 190,000 Alaska voters and more than 77.3 million Americans voted for Trump, knowing exactly what he was and is and what he intended and intends to do. Our senator, Dan Sullivan, is delighted with Trump, as is Gov. Dunleavy. Therefore, as much as I respect and agree with Tom Begich’s sentiments, I don’t think “We are better than this.” (That “we” is hard to define.) After every preventable and pointless tragedy our leaders say, “That’s not who we are.” This is a comforting falsehood. You are what you do (as pragmatists would understand.) This is exactly who “we” are, including Sen. Sullivan and Gov. Dunleavy and 77.3 million voters.

I passionately agree with Tom’s most important assertion, which is aspirational: “They will not define us.” All people of good will must commit to that.

Clarence Crawford is a retired teacher, retired wilderness guide and longtime Anchorage resident who plans to live out his years here along with his wife. Their children and grandchildren were born Alaskan and live in Anchorage.

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