If Only America Could Get Out of Its Own Way….
Photo Credit: "Freddy," a German traveler, and his some people he met during his U.S. trip. Skift
Skift Take
The brands lining up to buy a piece of Freddy are going to fail; it shows how little America's pull depends on marketing, and how much it depends on the country getting out of its own way.
The most valuable thing America owns is also the thing it keeps sabotaging at its own front door, especially in the past decade. Freddy is the viral German fan who has spent six weeks driving across the country and posting about it on X, calling a Buc-ee's at one in the morning the holy land, rating a Waffle House a 10 out of 10, and freezing happily under American air conditioning. America, and the rest of the world watching America right now, fell for him — hard. And everything he fell for was already here, for free, long before he booked the flight.
America has spent the better part of a century exporting itself: the movies and the music and th
