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As the US itself became more like Europe - more industrialized, more urbanized, less composed of small farmers and more composed of urban workers - the resistance to learning from European advances became increasingly irrational, and at odds with American pragmatism. Our political system lagged behind as well, lacking the fluidity and inventiveness that made parliamentary systems the dominant form of democracy elsewhere around the world.

This perverse refusal to learn from others who have been inspired by us in the political realm is strikingly at odds with Americans' grassroots improvisatory traditions. From food to music to everything in between, Americans have always adopted diverse influences, mixed them together and made them their own, based on the sole criteria of what works.

Yet, with far too few exceptions, we Americans have spectacularly failed to do this in the realms of economics and politics, where powerful elites have emerged to repeatedly stifle the US' spirit of ingenuity. Not only that, they have successfully blinded us as well. Under the growing influence of the 1 per cent, American exceptionalism has become American deceptionalism: a perverse refusal to see what others have done - often inspired by our own earlier examples - and use that knowledge to continue advancing ourselves

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A 2001 paper from the Brookings Institute, "Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?" found a direct correlation between welfare state spending and the size of minority populations - the more minorities, the lower the levels of spending. This held true both internationally (comparing more than 60 different countries) and nationally (comparing all 50 states). The paper did not argue that racial animosity was the sole reason for the US' fragmented and under-sized welfare state. It also cited the US' backwards political institutions - such as our lack of proportional representation - which in turn have roots in our history and geography.

The report stated, "Racial animosity in the US makes redistribution to the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters. American political institutions limited the growth of a socialist party, and more generally limited the political power of the poor."

Among other things, the report offered comparisons across time, which showed the US lagging decades behind Europe throughout the 20th century. The size of subsidies and transfers in the US in 1970 was roughly the same as that in the European Union in 1937. US figures in 1998 roughly matched the EU in 1960.

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Grand bargains

Obama is obsessed with trying to strike a series of "grand bargains" with conservatives, even though they keep rejecting him. As a consequence, he repeatedly begins his negotiations with positions that conservatives have supported in the past, hoping they will support those positions again. At the same time, he refrains from making energetic arguments for the liberal position.

As a result, his stimulus program was roughly 40 per cent tax cuts (even though they're less effective in creating jobs than direct spending is) in a vain attempt to get Republican support. And when it came to health care, his approach was based on Republican proposals from the 1990s, developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation. It was the same foundation used by Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts.

Obama never used the popularity, efficiency and overall success of Medicare to argue for a government-centered approach, either an immediate full-fledged socialization, aka "Medicare for all", or a gradualist approach - a public option for those currently without private insurance. Indeed, Obama collaborated with conservative Democrats in the Senate - most notably Max Baucus - to silence those who advocated for these approaches.

Medicare-for-all advocates were reduced to shouting from the audience and getting arrested, despite representing a substantial body of public opinion. Support for the more gradual public-option approach hovered around 60 per cent or more throughout the year-long legislative process. And yet, these proposals - tried and true in the rest of the industrialized world - could not even get a serious hearing.

Such is the power of American deceptionalism: No one else's experience in the world matters to the American political system.