Comment by carefulfungi

When thinking about the complexity of the United States it might be useful to compare it to Europe as a whole. The US is physically larger. The EU has 1.5x the population. Spain, Germany, Italy, and Hungary are four very different places. As are California, Ohio, Alabama, and Alaska. Does it feel strange to you that there aren't EU-wide social or health insurance programs; or that Hungary has different politics from Luxembourg; or that Greece and Germany have different economies? It is a very sloppy analogy. However, it is closer to comparing like orders of magnitude.