The more I think about things, and how well stuff works in other countries, i believe it’s due to the sheer size and demographic makeup of the country. I often times wonder if it would be better managed with more of an EU style system where certain standards are core across all states and then leave each country to truly govern themselves.
I’m fairly certain this was the original goal when the country was founded and the idea of states rights, but at some it feels like things got flipped on their heads.
(Note, this is probably more of a rant and I know there are definitely things that would not work as well in that situation, but part of me wonders if it’d be a better solution than what we’re stuck with right now)
I think European countries actually have their own significant cultural differences (and language barriers) that’s keeping them from centralizing further. US states are more or less the same culturally. The geographic-based cultural divide would be urban vs rural.
Tell me you don’t know how diverse the US without knowing how diverse the US is.
Got to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas and then to the Deep South and then New England and I challenge you to call them culturally the same.
As states, they’re very similar. You’ll see people flying the Confederate flag in rural parts of all states, and pockets of significant hispanic population in nearly all states as well. I’ve been to all those places. Many states have kind of a “fractal” geo-demographic phenomenon that kind of mirror the US as a whole (I.e. Ohio with backwards south, liberal-ish north, plenty of hispanic people, and fairly diverse cities). The differences between states are quite minor, IMO.