[ninjanomnom]

I'd wager the majority inside the US knows that it's behind in many fields but don't know exactly which ones. We learn to disregard people speaking blanket praise but don't learn enough about other countries from our media and schooling to argue against them. From the outside then this looks like most of our population thinks we're the best in every respect, but on the inside there's a very large and growing sentiment of dissatisfaction and pessimism.