In countries with fewer freedoms, some political factions tend to publish generalized or exaggerated American flaws to distract their own populations from domestic discontent.
That was an old Soviet thing also, true. And a staple of Nazi/Fascist wartime propaganda.
It was, in some places, quite sincere though.
The old intellectual class had elite social roots, and the argument about social class (the Americans being déclassé in those days) was real.
It has returned in full force in the US however, one of the most curious things in my lifetime.