Although many Americans struggle to realize it, there are other countries in the world. And within these other countries, there are people with opinions.

Now place yourself in the shoes of one of those people and look at the news that comes out of America; the politics, the domestic issues, the celebrities.

Now maybe it’s just me (though I very much hope it isn’t) but I worry about this. Maybe it is because I am a self-conscious teenager, but I worry that the image that others see is disgusting.

I read our news often and am disgusted. Mainly its when a GOP candidate opens his/hers mouth but it even goes all the way to court cases and even sports.

We recently had a speaker at our school who talked about the image of a brand. As the head of a marketing company, his job is to portray a certain business in a positive light.

Hell, maybe we need some America commercials, like the ones you see for Arizona and Puerto Rico. We can show pictures of the nicer cities, not of Detroit and Cleveland. Then we can end with a catchy phrase like “America; it ain’t what it used to be but its still a lot better than your country” (We should probably not run this in most Western European countries if we go with that phrase).

Our image used to be one of power and justice. Now it is of fat people who pick on Muslims or ignorant people who can’t tell Austria from Australia. What happened to the days of golden roads and silver lakes?

I could go on and on about everything we did wrong but that is not the point. The past, unfortunately, is out of our control. What we can do is look towards the future in a way that is less egocentric.

We must rebrand ourselves, give ourselves a new image. Because not only does what others think matter, our confidence as a country matters too. The moral is low and we need a change. Let’s boost our image and in doing so create a better country.