America is, politically, the oldest society on the planet -- every other country has changed political systems more recently. Thus it is like a very old person who still foolishly thinks of themselves as a young rebel.
If I had to characterize America as a single person it would be an 80 year old in a cowboy hat, touchy and armed but not with a gun (he can't see well enough to hit anything), with a grenade launcher. Whenever he gets angry or scared, he fires grenades at groups of people.
Iceland became a republic in 1944, voting to change its political system.
The US Civil War might have marked a change of governmental systems if not for the failure of Reconstruction. Or 1966 might have been seen as the inauguration of a new de facto universal democracy if its own changes are not still being resisted and reversed.
I'm not claiming that a change in political systems involves some kind of political or social reset. But no question about why the US acts it does can ignore our system.
Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
Tijs Teulings 🦑
Ailbhe
zaratustra
Eleanor Saitta