the end.

This is Part Thirteen. Part One is here.

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Let’s end this way. 

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher than that of Russia and China, with a rate of 655 per 100,000. The United States imprisons more people, 2.2 million, than any other nation. Yes, more than even China. How? (We’re ending so I can’t get started on the fake drug war that started from racism and goes after black and brown people way more than whites but read Chasing the Scream if you want to know more.) 

American women are more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in other wealthy nations. With fourteen deaths per 100,000 live births, the maternal mortality rate in America is nearly three times the rate in Sweden, according to the Commonwealth Fund. Part of this reflects the woeful maternal death rates for black and indigenous women in the United States.

Life expectancy in the United States is the lowest among the eleven highest-income countries. I said this one already but it’s worth repeating. 

Infant mortality in the United States is highest among the richest nations, 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, as against a combined average of 3.6 per 1,000 live births for the richest countries, as against about 2 per 1,000 in Japan and Finland. 

American students score near the bottom in industrialized nations in mathematics and reading. Fifteen-year-olds in the United States scored well below students in peer nations on math literacy, below Latvia and the Slovak Republic, among the dozens of countries that exceed U.S. test scores. 

By the time that the first woman major-party candidate ran for president in 2016, some sixty other countries had already had a woman head of state, including India, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and smaller countries such as Iceland, Norway, Burundi, and Slovenia. 

And, in perhaps the most important measure of all for citizens anywhere, the United States ranked eighteenth in happiness in the world, just above the Czech Republic, according to the consortium of organizations, including Gallup, that publishes the results each year. The United States has fallen seven spots since 2012, a testimony to our continuing discontents.

(all of these stats are from Caste - again you should read it.) 

America is 33rd in access to quality education, 33rd in child mortality and 31st in clean drinking water.  

But our stock market is up!

Again, this does not make sense. Does it?

Also I haven’t even brought up the wall, immigration, and so much more. Because, well, at some point we have to stop. But before we go… that wall. Just so you know as of May 2020 there have been 16 miles of new wall built. The rest has been fixing old wall - although much of that has fallen down. 

5 miles was built by a private firm that raised money and then was arrested for money fraud. 

Oh the price of that 16 miles is about… 3.6 billion dollars - taken from the military budget. (I mean I love that it was taken from the military budget but 3.6 billion for 16 miles is a lot of money. 

Which kind of sums up a lot of Trump and brings us to the final point.