> You've heard how great and exceptional your country is since you were born, and suddenly evidence is being pointed to that maybe that wasn't so true, so your brain is trying to reason away how clearly this can't be true, you cannot been lied to your entire life...

You are describing cognitive dissonance, I suspect most people do have it about their country (unless they really like history in which case they are aware of the fucked up things their country has done and there is much less dissonance) but the average US citizen is very much an outlier by the standard of western countries.

Even the smart ones who do know history often only know their side of it from their point of view and many of them have very little understanding of the world beyond their borders (because they simply have no need to).

They just seem to blur the border between nationalism and patriotism more than most countries.

That sounds a lot like the assumption that crime rates are better in less populous areas - just because there is less reporting doesn't mean that it isn't there.

Have you been to the US? If not how can you be certain that the US is truly worse?