Caffeinated Politics

Today, while watching the Saturday Night Live skit at the Defense Department, I had to laugh at the American swagger. I was not aware Colin Jost got up that early on a weekday. If one listened to the current Defense Secretary, one might conclude there has been little time for reading between swigs of whiskey.

Today, it was clearly awkward for Pete Hegseth, who wanted American exceptionalism to be very much headlined in news reports. The problem, however, is those pesky things called facts. After all, the country being called “backwards” has quietly been outpacing the United States on some of the most basic measures of modern civilization. Iran, yes, the Islamic theocracy that rightly can be lambasted for its nutty and violent religious zealotry and lack of individual rights, boasts a literacy rate of about 94%, while the United States, self‑styled beacon of enlightenment, sits at roughly 79%. That’s not a rounding error; that’s the kind of gap that makes you wonder whether we should stop exporting democracy and start importing reading tutors. And if we’re being honest, states like Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi could use the help. After all, if we’re going to keep insisting we’re the greatest nation on Earth, it would be nice if more of our citizens could read the history behind the slogans and lingo.

In Texas, approximately 81% of the adult population is literate, with 19% lacking basic prose literacy. Alabama has an estimated 85.2% literacy rate, while Arkansas has an estimated 86.3% literacy rate. 

The embarrassment doesn’t stop there.

Iran has managed to educate its populace without bankruptcy for those who want an education. Iran offers free schooling through college, meaning a young person in Tehran can earn a degree without signing away their financial future. Meanwhile, American students graduate with diplomas and debt loads that would make a loan shark blush. We call it “freedom,” but it’s hard to feel free when Sallie Mae is sending you love letters every month for the next 25 years. Perhaps the real shock is that an Islamic theocracy has figured out how to make higher education accessible while the richest nation in history still treats it like a luxury good.

And of course, then there is health care — America’s favorite national wound. Iran provides universal health coverage to roughly 90 per cent of its population, a statistic that would be impressive for any developing nation, let alone one under heavy sanctions. Meanwhile, in the United States, a single ambulance ride can cost more than a semester of Iranian college. We don’t have universal coverage, but we do have GoFundMe, which has become our unofficial national health insurer. Nothing says “world superpower” like crowdsourcing your chemotherapy.

Taken together, the picture is almost comical: the country we’re told must be bombed to smithereens was quietly outperforming us on literacy, education affordability, and health coverage. It’s enough to make you wonder who exactly is falling behind. Maybe, once Washington finishes, in years to come, whatever ill‑advised and illegal foreign adventure it unleashed in Iran, it can consider loosening immigration laws for Iranians. Not for engineers or doctors, but for literacy coaches and health‑care administrators. Let them settle in the states where reading scores are lowest, and college prices are high. Let them show us how a nation we love to underestimate managed to get the basics right.

The irony is almost too rich: in the race for modernity, the Islamic Republic has jogged steadily ahead while the United States, draped in its own mythology, is tying its shoelaces together. The question isn’t whether Iran is perfect — it isn’t — but whether America is still willing to learn from anyone it has spent decades dismissing. And at this point, with the numbers staring us in the face, the real test of national maturity might be whether we can swallow our pride long enough to admit that we have some catching up to do.