Look, we're ballsy enough to try running a government based on the idea that everybody can get along. If nothing else, I applaud our ambition. And America still has potential. We just need to dig out the entrenched cancers holding it back, although that's starting to look like a pretty tall order.

The USA is great in only two things; military and economic might. As far as the former is concerned, it's only the latest of a long series of superpowers going back to Egypt, the Hittites and Rome. In terms of economic power, that's hardly a surprise. It's quite simply the largest of the developed countries, so any equally wealthy countries have smaller economies purely because they're just not as big.

America has never been great. At times, it has been better for certain groups of people. The 'good 'ole days' weren't good when they were experiencing them.

What does "Greatness" mean? Well it's the quality of being great, distinguished, outstanding. The US has never been uniformly great. It has achieved moments of greatness. Intervention in WW1 and 2. But its role in world leadership has been anything but great: witness, Vietnam, Middle East, Afganistan and Iraq. On the other hand the sheer power of its military has provided a balance against dark forces in the world which we shouldn't underestimate. The US's mixed track record in the world is not new. It's been that way since the end of WW2. More misses than hits. It's history of race and native peoples is also hardly a testament to greatness. But it's hardly the only country with shame in this regard, including my own. No, what makes us question the US's greatness now is its loss of idealism. That's what used to be the core of its greatness. America's head might get confused, but it's heart was always in the right place. Now, not so much. America preaches democracy, but hardly practices it. Its political parties are corrupt puppets of the elites, its electoral system a travesty in the 21st Century. It cries foul about interference in its elections, while taking every opportunity to intervene in the affairs of other countries, somehow thinking it has the high moral ground. Its mantra of individualism and opportunity has descended into a twisted parody of those things, a country characterised by class greed, political opportunism and plutocracy. While too many Americans live within the self affirmation of the US's mainstream media's myopia, the rest of the world, certainly the western world, can see contemporary America with withering clarity. America was never and has never been uniformly Great. But at its best it had an ability to rise to Greatness when it needed to. The question is: Can it still do that, or is the Age of American Greatness over?

I love this country but I love it the way that a parent loves a kid. You might love them but you know they're going to fuck up from time to time.

I base my view of America on what the greatest figures in its history intended it to be (folks like some of the founding fathers, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Neil Armstrong and so on) In my mind the ideals and accomplishments these figures set a standard for what is truly 'American' so to speak and when the country falls short of these standards, it isn't that the idea of America sucks but that folks are being un American. Like Fred Phelps for instance. In my book he was un American.

Although we fail, America is a beacon. Aspiring to end genocide tho we engaged in it. Aspiring to respect the revolutions of other nations tho we crushed them. Aspiring to attain equality & justice for us & our posterity tho we deny them to our own citizens. Without the aspirations that our Preamble denotes, we would not be great. Greatness is the continuation of striving towards the ideal. That we shall fail in achieving it but to continue to strive towards it, is our greatness. And that we inspire other nations to exceed us in this endeavor, is inspirational.

It's hard to lose greatness you never had. We have done some remarkable things and for many years, we lead the world in many areas, but those days are over. We are dragging behind in so many critical areas, health care, infant mortality, education to name a few.

Then when you consider slavery(and discrimination that still exists) and the despicable way we treated the Native Americans, to this day! Well, we are not as humanitarian as we would like people and other countries to believe.

America will be great the day it confronts and actively seeks to make amends for its two great crimes against humanity: slavery, and the genocide of Native Americans.

Until then, it's just another empire. Built on some better ideas than most, but still, an empire.

America has never been great. It’s that simple, we have stood on the backs of others hard work and claimed it as our own. We have oppressed peoples who didn’t look the same as “us” time and time again. We don’t accept the blame for anything even when it’s clearly our wrong doing

It makes me fearful, when Amerikkka was "great" I would have either been in Slavery or swinging from a tree. No, we are not great, we have a large group of people within our country that would better serve us if they were not here with us. All who use this phrase with tRump are ones who need to LEAVE...

Any "greatness" that the US ever had came on the graves of natives and the backs of slaves, so I don't believe we can really say it was great at all.

Our greatness comes from immigrants taking a chance coming to a country where there is a chance to have a better life . There is a lot we could to make it better and I wouldn't say it's the greatest .

This is a great country! There is not one country that hasn't made some terrible mistakes. I am proud to to be American. I don't think we'r perfect, but we are a great republic. I think the world had a different opinion during WW2. We weren't the only ones involved in slavery. However my family fought in the civil war to free slaves! America's greatness is it's stand for freedom.

depends who you ask. id say the indigenous peoples would say it all went tits up when immigrants all came and made the country there own with genocide on the backs of slavery.

But it can get it back if it stops voting for that damn Republican Party and the loonies who comprise it.

As an outsider I consider it maybe an oxymoron