In the centre of the American continent the same sort of thing happens. The bulk of the population feels that American ways are the only natural ways, American forms of government the natural forms of government, and American abuses only such as human nature makes inevitable. The same sort of thing would be found in the centre of China or of any large homogeneous continental area. It would seem, therefore, that 'insularity', so far from being a characteristic of islanders, is, on the contrary, most often to be found among the inhabitants of vast inland countries.
Source: Bertrand Russell: On insularity (written in Sept. 21, 1932 and pub. in Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975.
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The citizens of so-called "continental nations" like the United States, China, and Russia include a considerable number of people who, as Russell pointed out, resemble "frogs in a well" (i.e., people with a narrow worldview). Because continental nations can largely sustain themselves without relying on others, there is a tendency for fewer people to have knowledge about foreign countries.
One typical example of this is that while Japanese people are exposed to a vast amount of news and information about the United States on a daily basis, Americans, in comparison, receive very little information about Japan, and even that information often seems biased.
This situation has been somewhat corrected by the advancement of the internet, but even in Japan, not just in the U.S., there are quite a few people who hardly watch television or read newspapers and instead rely solely on their preferred social media platforms for information.
Trump, who gained fame in his younger years as a television host, now claims that TV and newspapers are "biased!" (i.e., controlled by Democratic supporters) and seems to obtain most of his information from his favorite social media sources. He repeatedly chants the slogan "Make America Great Again" under the banner of "America First," threatening to impose high tariffs on various countries. However, this seems like an act of spitting into the sky, one that may eventually lead both the U.S. and Trump himself into a difficult predicament. How will things turn out?
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