In the presidential debate last Monday Donald Trump warned America that she's "become a third-world country" to the guffaws and disdain of the liberals, the media (but I repeat myself) and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who later accused Trump of talking smack about the country she wants to loot, er, lead.

One must ask, is Trump correct or do we continue to occupy the apex of the first world? Is there evidence to support Mr. Trump's claim?

Let me offer exhibit A.  

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Two years after the University of Missouri closed the state’s lone hospital for treating tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, state health officials are looking at opening a new facility.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is seeking bids for a study that could provide officials with a roadmap for opening a new treatment center to replace the current process of sending patients to other states.

It comes amid a nationwide increase in the number of people contracting the airborne bacterial disease that attacks the lungs.

According to the request, Missouri has averaged 90 active tuberculosis cases in each of the past three years

Missouri has been more fortunate than many other states in this regard. Why?  Because Missouri a series of strict laws against illegal alien encroachment, going back to 2007. 

As a result Missouri has avoided many of the pitfalls -- including third-world diseases -- that are plaguing other states. But the power of the central government has grown to the point where it has managed to circumvent many of the laws put in place by the states and so the problems plaguing other states are starting to dribble in.

Let's face it; tuberculosis is now a Third World disease. In the U.S. the number of cases of TB were cut in half between 1953 and 1968 due to better antibiotics and better medical care. (It is interesting to note that Operation Wetback repatriated up to 2 million trespassing aliens starting in 1954, thus helping to reduce the number of such cases.) The reduction in TB rates turned around in the mid '80s as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (which was not handled like any other infectious epidemics where authorities follow the chain of contagion and restrict the activities of the infected; AIDS was allowed to burn through the populace out of fears of stigmatizing homosexuals.) Still, rates remained low. Only now we see them rising -- and HIV is fairly under control, so that is not the cause.

According to the CDC 88% of all antibiotic-resistant TB in the U.S. comes from immigrants.

And that is just one infectious disease. Consider that last year we had 15 cases of bubonic plague in the U.S. Bubonic plague is clearly a third-world disease, one long absent in America.

Another facet of Third Worldism is the export of raw materials rather than manufactured goods. America is now almost completely an exporter of coal, because the Federal government has used regulatory power to strangle the industry. In 2008 then President Obama famously stated: “If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

He has since gone on to crush an entire industry. Peabody Energy and Arch Coal -- the largest and second largest coal companies on Earth -- both went into bankruptcy recently. We now export raw coal because we can't use it for anything.

And Lead. The Doe Run smelter -- the last in America -- closed a couple of years ago as a result of pressure from the Federal government. America now cannot smelt lead, but rather is forced to sell the raw materials to others who process it. That is third world.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump scolded Ford for moving all its small car manufacturing to foreign countries. Well, that is what they are doing. It's what happens when you are providing an unfriendly environment to manufacturing businesses.

Then there is language. One of the characteristics of a third-world country is the preponderance of languages; multiple languages exemplify disunity, thus dividing the nation. Well, the U.S. is at least the fifth largest Spanish speaking country on Earth and may well be second only to Mexico with between 35 and 50 million speakers. 

In fact, one in five households do not speak English at home. While this is not solely the fault of Barack Obama, the problem (and it is a problem) has clearly metastasized under Il Duce.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is calling for more spending on infrastructure, despite Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus which supposedly funded "shovel ready jobs" and rebuilt these ailing roads and whatnot. If we can't make basic repairs to infrastructure with a trillion dollars, how do we differ from a third-world country?

And violence. As I have noted, East St. Louis has levels of violence comparable to Honduras and other hellholes. We all know how many murders are occurring in Chicago, for instance, and we know of the rioting in Baltimore, in Charlotte, and in Ferguson. How does this differ from the war-torn, strife-filled third world?

Well, partly there is the rule of law. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama simply ignores the rule of law when it inconveniences him, granting an amnesty to illegals despite laws duly passed by Congress, for instance. He has simply gone ahead with many things he wanted, such as military action in Libya without Congressional approval, or forcing Boeing to shut down a factory for being non-union in 2011, or giving Mexican criminals thousands of illegal weapons in Fast and Furious. What about the drone strikes killing American citizens without due process? What about his use of executive orders to release people duly imprisoned by courts of law? How about his circumventing Congress to seize land?

And under Mr. Obama wealth has concentrated to just a few crony fat cats while everyone else lives hand to mouth due to underemployment. Even the liberal Huffington Post had to admit this fact. Rich oligarchs are another example of third worldism.

No Third World country is complete without vote fraud to keep the ruling junta in power. Consider the fact that fraud may well be the reason Obama won re-election last time. 

A nation without the rule of law is a banana republic. Banana republics are inherently third world.

So Hillary and the Left may dismiss Mr. Trump's argument that America is becoming third world, but the facts belie their claims.