Economically it’s better off. Politically and socially I think it’s worse off. The federal government started as a vehicle for economic integration and has become a vehicle for social and cultural normalization. That’s a problem because while the US is more homogenous than say the EU, it’s more heterogenous than say France, Germany, or the UK.

Here’s what I see as the basic problem. Most countries are ethnostates, including most European countries. The UK is still 80% ethnic British, Germany is still 80% ethnic German, Sweden is 80% ethnic Swedes, etc. Regardless of political differences, they have a strong common bond. Americans don’t realize just how strong this bond is. I’m a Bangladeshi immigrant raised in America. I have almost nothing in common with most Bangladeshis. But my ancestors are buried there and that means a lot.

In the US, there is no common ethnic ties. (No ancestry makes up more than 15%.) As my wife says, America is a “credo nation.” In a way that’s a strength, allowing the country to readily absorb immigrants. On the other hand, that’s basically a political ideology disguised as a national culture. What do Americans that don’t share politics, and don’t have the close ties that come from living in the same geographic area, have in common? Culturally there are large divergences. The United States is the most religious developed country in the world, comparable to Poland or Iran in terms of people who pray daily. But large pockets are as secular as Paris. In fact possibly more so. In France, for example, the cultural Catholicism of French secular society mediates between Paris and the daily churchgoers in the rural areas (https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/10/02/the-catholic-nes...).

What would happen if people in France got to control abortion or religious laws in Poland? That’s maybe even understating the distinction. France, perhaps as a result of cultural Catholicism, has abortion laws that would be unconstitutional in every US state (generally illegal after 12 weeks). 24 weeks is common in the US, and states like Massachusetts want to make it legal based on a doctor’s judgment up until birth. (However justified, it’s undeniable that law is based on sweeping moral premises regarding when personal autonomy or the judgment of a single expert can override the state’s authority to protect life). What would happen if a court in Brussels had banned schools in Poland or Italy or Spain (or heck, Germany or the Netherlands or the UK) from offering even religious education even on an opt-out basis? Or struck down nearly every country’s abortion laws? Would anyone still want further EU integration?

The US has long papered over these differences with an exaggerated patriotism. Commonality through the belief in the goodness of America, it’s constitution, and its history. That hasn’t broken down completely but it’s breaking down.

America has been more divided before. But the nature of the country was very different back then. In a country where the federal government is tiny and focuses mainly on defense and regulating interstate trade, these differences just don’t mean as much. But that totally changed in the 20th century. FDR killed federalism and fundamentally changed the nature of the country. Meanwhile, the Warren Court inserted the federal government into myriad social issues. Suddenly, the federal government had to power to decide that you couldn’t have prayer in schools and you couldn’t shut down strip clubs. World War II, the post-war economic boom, and the external threat of the Soviet Union provided a common identity and shared purpose for a long time. After the fall of communism, that evaporated.

What’s left country of 330 million people, faced with the same economic challenge all developed countries are facing, but also deep cultural fissures. The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett was a stark example of this. She’s insanely popular among Republicans, with 95% of people approving of her. Democrats, meanwhile, didn’t just attack her judicial philosophy. (A sitting Senator called it just “another way of saying racism, sexism, and homophobia.”) They said she was a character from a dystopian science fiction novel. Whatever your politics you have to appreciate the significance of that. On one hand you have people who see her as a model of an exemplary life—and the values that produce such a person. And on the other hand you have people who see her as an attack on modernity itself.

Now, you obviously have liberals and conservatives in every country, and political and social disagreements. I suspect, though, that the difference between Massachusetts and Louisiana is bigger than between Bavaria and Berlin. Regardless, Germans are still Germans. Americans don’t understand how powerful that bond is, because they don’t have it and don’t realize that maybe they need something else to fill the void.