'The opposite of exceptional': Foreign journalists stunned by dysfunction of America's 2020 election

Veteran foreign correspondents covering America's 2020 presidential election say that the United States is acting much more like a banana republic than a stable democracy.

In interviews with The New Yorker, some of the reporters even gloated about how far America had fallen, as they were used to receiving lectures from the United States about the importance of respecting free and fair elections.

“It is stunning for me, as an African, reporting on it, that the same things that America has been lecturing Africa on appear to be happening right here,” Larry Madowo, a Kenyan-born BBC journalist, tells The New Yorker.

“In so many ways, you’re the opposite of... exceptional,” Dutch reporter Arjen van der Horst tells the publication.

Jesper Steinmetz, a Danish journalist, tells The New Yorker that this election should dispel "his notion among Americans that you seem more free than the rest of us."

The journalists point to rampant inequality, the high cost of health care, and President Donald Trump's misinformation-filled tweets about the election as reasons for concern over the country's well being.

Abderrahim Foukara, a reporter for Al Jazeera, tells The New Yorker that most people from around the world are nonetheless watching the race intensely.

"Nothing that happens in the United States spares—whether good, bad, or ugly—the rest of the world," he says.