The World Ranked Us, and It's Not Great News

A Pew survey just asked 36 countries to grade the world's superpowers, and China came out ahead, 46% to 36%. America lost a popularity contest to the place that invented social credit scores.

Naturally, The Onion rounded up some completely real Americans for comment.

"Honestly, fair," said one man, staring at his phone bill. "At least China's infrastructure projects finish on time."

"I'd trust a country more if it hadn't started three wars I can't locate on a map," offered a woman holding a latte she paid nine dollars for.

"We gave the world jazz and the Big Mac," said a retired dentist. "That should count for something."

"They gave the world high-speed rail," his wife added, not looking up.

One teenager, asked for his take, just shrugged and said, "TikTok's still better than whatever we've got," before returning to TikTok.

Not everyone was ready to concede. "This is clearly a rigged poll," insisted a man in a flag-print polo, standing in line at a gas station that sold him a $7 energy drink. "Rigged by who? Doesn't matter. Rigged."

Meanwhile, diplomats in Washington reportedly spent the morning drafting a strongly worded statement, then abandoned it to argue about who forgot to renew the office Wi-Fi.

As of press time, America was still comfortably ahead in one category: confidence that none of this actually matters.

Distilled from The Onion