What do you think the US does well?

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

We hold fair elections, that's about it.

Everything else is anything but admirable. We are never in the top tier of any education-related statistics, we squander tons of money in our terrible conquest to police the world, our politicians always claim to want to cut spending but never actually do it because of some special interest group who is in love with said spending and/or because they're too worried about reelection, our debt has skyrocketed so much out of control that our credit rating was downgraded, our political leaders are perfectly content to argue endlessly rather than compromise and to let our entitlements go bankrupt rather than enacting sensible reforms, our labor participation rate sucks, wages are stagnant even as the cost of living goes up and up, we force state governments to allow abortion and gay marriage, and underemployment has been in double digits since 2008.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

We hold fair elections, that's about it.

Everything else is anything but admirable. We are never in the top tier of any education-related statistics, we squander tons of money in our terrible conquest to police the world, our politicians always claim to want to cut spending but never actually do it because of some special interest group who is in love with said spending and/or because they're too worried about reelection, our debt has skyrocketed so much out of control that our credit rating was downgraded, our political leaders are perfectly content to argue endlessly rather than compromise and to let our entitlements go bankrupt rather than enacting sensible reforms, our labor participation rate sucks, wages are stagnant even as the cost of living goes up and up, we force state governments to allow abortion and gay marriage, and underemployment has been in double digits since 2008.

Did you know that when Minnesota was compared to other nations in educational achievement, we were 3rd or 4th in the world behind I believe Taiwan, Singapore, and one other?

And that's without a complex mercantilist system like Germany or cram schools galore like many high achieving nations.

I believe we achieve this through a fairly and consistently funded school system with an emphasis on the how rather than the what.  But the real achievement is successfully teaching your students to demonstrate well how they came to their conclusion...even if it was wrong.

Learn how to learn and learn for a lifetime.  Learn what to learn and you'll be done before you know it!

The question was about the country as a whole, not one specific state. So, I'm basing my response on the condition of the country as a whole. Ask me "What do you think MN does well?" and my response would change drastically. But the question concerned the country as a whole, so I based my response on national statistics/actions and federal politicians.

We hold fair elections

  Compared to countries that just make up the official vote tallies, sure I guess.

Allowing the rich to donate large sums of money for attack ads /=/ frauding the vote.

All you need to have a fair election is authentic vote totals that were counted correctly and reflect the people's opinion as shown at the ballot box. You can argue that things like big money make the election less than ideal, but it does not destroy the "fair and free" elections status of U.S. elections, because the people are still allowed to make the final decision, and the vote reflects the people's opinion, not that of the current government who wants to stay in power for eternity.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

We hold fair elections

  Compared to countries that just make up the official vote tallies, sure I guess.

Allowing the rich to donate large sums of money for attack ads /=/ frauding the vote.

All you need to have a fair election is authentic vote totals that were counted correctly and reflect the people's opinion as shown at the ballot box. You can argue that things like big money make the election less than ideal, but it does not destroy the "fair and free" elections status of U.S. elections, because the people are still allowed to make the final decision, and the vote reflects the people's opinion, not that of the current government who wants to stay in power for eternity.

Buying elections?  That's the only counter-argument to your point you could possibly think of?

Well, there's other things, but:

Gerrymandering? Only applies to the U.S. house, and it's not like the dems would have the house majority right now if gerrymandering didn't exist, republicans won the national house vote 51-45% last year.

Electoral College Problems? Only applies to the presidency.