Last Friday in Covent Garden, a street performer pulled me into his act.
“Where are you from?”
“America.”
The boos came right on cue. Not playful. Not ironic. Real boos. Not from everyone—but from enough to feel it.
And yes, I knew they were coming. Anyone paying attention to how the world currently sees the U.S. knows. Still, hearing it live hits differently. It stings. Because I hate being cast as the villain—especially when I oppose with every fiber of my being everything that America has become since January 20, 2025.
But in that moment, none of that mattered. I wasn’t me. I was “America.”
That’s the point.
The rest of the world isn’t parsing our politics the way we do. They’re not distinguishing between voters and non-voters, between MAGA and anti-MAGA. They see the country. Full stop.
The passport does the talking—and right now, it’s not saying anything flattering.
To be clear, that moment wasn’t my overall experience. Over six days in London, everyone we met was warm, welcoming, and eager to talk. And when the conversation turned to U.S. politics, the reaction was universal: They hate Trump. Not politely. Not abstractly. Viscerally.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: even when people separate you from the politics in conversation, the reputation still sticks at a distance. Countries are judged by what their governments do. Period.
And when a nation elects leaders who attack democratic norms, cozy up to authoritarians, alienate allies, and uproot the world order without thought or care for the global consequences, the world doesn’t carve out exceptions for those who voted the other way.
They just see the country. Which means we carry it—all of us.
That’s frustrating. It’s unfair. It’s also reality.
For a long time, Americans treated politics as a domestic sport. Something that affected us internally. Not anymore. The damage is global. And it shows up in small, uncomfortable moments—like a crowd booing when you say where you’re from.
That moment wasn’t about me. It couldn’t have been. They didn’t know me. All they knew was that I’m American—and that alone was enough, because their reaction was about what “America” currently represents.
Reputations aren’t permanent. They’re earned. They can be lost. And, with hard work, they can be regained. If we don’t like how the world sees us right now, there’s only one way to change it. We don’t get to shrug it off. We don’t get to pretend it’s not our problem. It is our problem. And it’s time we started fixing it.
To hear a full recap of our Spring Break (or Spreak, as my daughter calls it) adventure in London, tune into this week’s episode of The Norah and Dad Show, available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Overcast, your browser, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.
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