Who do you consider the most “quintessentially American” American?

That’s somewhat the point of the post. I pointed out that Germany is probably now one of the most progressive nations on the planet but most foreigners will still immediately think of Hitler(who wasn’t even German) above anybody else. Unfortunately I very much doubt most American’s could pick Angela Merkel out of a picture line up…or even know who she is for that matter. In Europe the “quintessential” positive German figure these days is probably Jurgen Klopp but again I doubt 90 percent of American’s know who he is. What’s fascinating about a question like this is that there is almost always a big difference between how natives view there country and how the rest of the world views it. It’s telling that so far nobody replying to this question has mentioned Donald Trump-yet I would hazard he would come at the very top of just about every none American answering the same question. In terms of the rest of the world he very much is the “quintessential American”. He’s brash. He’s combative. He’s arrogant. He exemplifies greed, excess, capitalism but also drive, ambition and success. He’s somewhat of a benign authoritarian figure rather than a dictator. Narcissistic, self interested and amoral rather than out and out evil. Most importantly though he is exceptionally entertaining and people can’t help to be captivated by him regardless of whether they are a fan or not. This is of course not a good representation of how most Americans see America but it’s a pretty accurate one of how much of the outside world views America.