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The United States is a constant source of both fascination and frustration to those living outside of its borders, and perhaps to those within as well. Inspiring both hope and hatred, the US lumbers along on its self-proclaimed historical mission to bring liberty, democracy and equality to the world. It is a mission that has been admired and emulated across the globe but one which is increasingly seen as insensitive, exclusionary, arrogant and aggressive.

My own fascination with America emerged when, as a student, I read about the ideals and aims of the American revolutionaries of the eighteenth century. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence told the world that it was “self-evident” that “men are created equal” and that government was instituted in order to secure “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” My fascination deepened when I came to understand that those groups who were denied the citizenship rights granted to all free, white men actively used the ideals of the founders as weapons in their own fight for those rights. The ideals of freedom, democracy and equality were given a fuller meaning by the struggles of slavery abolitionists, suffragettes, anti-imperialists and civil rights protestors. Martin Luther King tapped into the most American of traditions when he pronounced his dream of racial justice – what he called cashing in the promissory note signed by the architects of the nation.

Today, the American dream is rarely evoked but nightmarish visions of rampant American consumerism, an out of control foreign policy, extensive environmental waste and destruction and a mindless popular culture are constantly set before us. Not only are the founding values of the US widely sneered at, they are also often blamed for all the terrible things that happen in the world. Anti-Americanism is on the rise across the globe but sadly, it is the failure of the US to retain faith in its own mission that has bolstered and encouraged its critics.

Much of contemporary American rhetoric about freedom and democracy rings hollow. This is not because we might contest its premises but literally because it has been emptied of meaning. George W. Bush does not have an inspiring vision for the future in the way that Thomas Jefferson or Martin Luther King did. Let’s be honest. Inspiring political visions of the future are pretty thin on the ground right now, period. Instead, from Washington to Baghdad, disillusionment holds our political imagination in check. Until America starts to believe in itself again, it has little chance of capturing the hearts and minds of others. America, in many ways a symbol of modernity and the future, will be loved again when we can all renew our political aspirations for a better world.

Click here to read Gerard Baker's response: People might hate America but they still want to move there

A Battle of Ideas debate on "Why do people hate America?" will take place on Saturday, October 27 at 12.15

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Cheryl Hudson is an associate fellow at the Rothermere American Institute and author of American Popular Culture and Anti-Americanism